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Nathan Byrne: NEW POINT OF BEGINNING

March 8, 2022

Nathan Byrne (MFA ​’21) was recently featured in an exhibition at Roy G Biv in Columbus, Ohio. NEW POINT OF BEGINNING, on view from January 14-February 4, 2022, consists of work made during Byrne’s International Research Project trip funded by the Stamps School of Art and Design.

Nathan Byrne, standing within his exhibition NEW POINT OF BEGINNING at Roy G Biv Gallery in Columbus, Ohio.
Nathan Byrne, standing within his exhibition NEW POINT OF BEGINNING at Roy G Biv Gallery in Columbus, Ohio.

The trip brought the artist to three important destinations to engage in research and artmaking: Carlsbad Caverns (to revisit an early memory of ​“feeling” space), Deming (to the land where the artist’s mother had lived), and Truth or Consequences, New Mexico (Art Residency at Art and Soul). The exhibition also includes Denny Died in Deming, a short prose piece by Byrne that recalls the final days of his mother’s life.

Coils of rusty wire are stacked in this site-specific sculpture on artist’s deceased mother’s desert land in Deming, NM.
Looking Wall, 2021. Site-specific sculpture on artist’s deceased mother’s desert land in Deming, NM.
A rounded structure made out of rusty wire in a desert landscape
Covered Garden, 2021. Site-specific sculpture on artist’s deceased mother’s desert land in Deming, NM.

NEW POINT OF BEGINNING was reviewed by Joel Oliphint in an article written for Columbus Alive: Artist Nathan Byrne finds traces of a life and a new beginning in Deming, New Mexico | Columbus Alive.

Byrne Image 4 Stamps Website
Picture from Life’s Other Side, 2021. Cyanotype on Legion Stonehenge, found personal items of artist’s deceased mother, wood, steel brackets, paint.

From Byrne’s Artist Statement:

In NEW POINT OF BEGINNING, I contemplate the memory and lingering presence of my mother Denny Byrne – who passed away 15 years ago from complications due to alcoholism and lack of access to adequate health care. During the summer of 2021, I embarked on a research trip and artist residency in Deming and Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, to find connections to my mother through the desert landscape and weather-beaten objects which I found scattered across what was once her home. While working on her land, I constructed two large scale site-specific sculptures, Looking Wall, and Covered Garden, which reimagine a dilapidated raised-bed and found remnants of fencing material – both previously used by my mother for gardening. Looking Wall, frames the mountains in the distance, and Covered Garden, is a memorial for her using her garden as the site. Another important work from the exhibition is Picture from Life’s Other Side, which is a large cyanotype documenting found personal items of my mother’s. A shelf is mounted below the print which displays the talismanic objects which make up the composition in the print above them. By working in varied modalities such as painting, sculpture, collage, alternative photography, and prose – I search for a new awareness and healing from the heartrending loss of my mother. The works from this series create a narrative which is emotive and intimately personal, yet they offer the viewer an opportunity to imagine the power of the irretrievable loss of a loved one, and the inevitable erosion of your memory of them.