Nate Lerner
Artist Statement
My work is about looking at things with cameras. As such, my primary materials are light, time, the picture plane, and the frame. Everything is terrible and wonderful and our brief being-towards-death is made richer by taking time to look at things as part of a concerted praxis of delight. I emphasize a balance between compositional rigor and aesthetic beauty, the indexical and the dreamlike. While the content of my images is clear and direct, their subject generally remains oblique and resists easy explanation – the work refuses to shout, and occupies a space beyond words as only visual art, dance, or certain musics can. Sequencing these images in photobook form exploits liminal realms between images and creates space for viewers to generate subjective interpretations with every reading; this requisite, participatory dynamic allows for possibilities of limitless cycles whereby the work is re-completed with each viewing.
Nate Lerner, Untitled, 2020. Archival inkjet print, 19″ × 13″.
Nate Lerner, Untitled, 2020. Archival inkjet print, 13 × 19 in.
Nate Lerner, Untitled, 2020. Archival inkjet print, 13 × 19 in.
Nate Lerner, Untitled, 2019. Archival inkjet print, 13 × 19 in.
Nate Lerner, Wood, 2020. 4”x5” gelatin silver contact print on plywood board, 8 × 10 in.
Nate Lerner, After W. H. Fox Talbot, 1, 2020. Gelatin silver print, 20 × 16 in.
Nate Lerner, After W. H. Fox Talbot, 2, 2020. Gelatin silver print, 20 x16 in.
Nate Lerner, CORN (not corn), 2020. Gelatin silver print, 14 × 11 in.
Nate Lerner
Nate Lerner would often travel to make photographs that engage viewers’ capacity for meaning-making. He has spent the pandemic in the New Haven area bringing renewed attention to the neighborhoods in which he resides.