The Power Plant

The Power Plant presents Nathan Eugene Carson’s first solo exhibition. The exhibition includes several interrelated series of paintings and mixed media works on paper. Known for figurative explorations of hybrid creatures, animals and human figures – both fictional and historical – Carson’s subjects emerge from richly-pigmented surfaces, and shed light on narratives that weave together themes of Black identity and history, personal memories, and charged symbolism. In the Negro series (2015), one of the artist’s most extensive bodies of work to date, Carson draws on his experiences growing up as a racialized youth in a white-dominated world. The Shine On series (2016), a point of departure from previous works, features abstract portraits on otherwise blank pages, occupying spaces that are imagined or conjured from memory. The exhibition also presents a new series, which consists of brightly–coloured works heavily layered with paint and collage elements.

In this conversation, Carson engages with Joséphine Denis.

Nathan Eugene Carson

Born, raised and based in Hamilton, Ontario, Nathan Eugene Carson received a BFA from the Ontario College of Art and Design in 2005. His drawings and paintings have since been shown at Verso Gallery, Lennox Contemporary, Gallery One, and the Drake Hotel in Toronto. Carson’s work was also featured during the AGO First Thursdays in partnership with the RBC Emerging Artists Projects and StreetARToronto. In 2016, he was part of an exhibition titled Ponto, the first of several held at Oswald Gallery, Hamilton. Other group exhibitions include Free Fall (2016) and Worked Over (2017), both at Oswald Gallery, and 100 Paintings (2019) at The Carnegie Gallery, Dundas, Ontario. A solo exhibition, May You Always See the Light (2017) also at Oswald Gallery, comprised paintings of brightly-rendered animals and whimsical characters emerging from obscure matte grounds. The Power Plant’s exhibition Cut from the same cloth is Carson’s first solo institutional exhibition.

Joséphine Denis

Joséphine Denis was born in Haiti, raised between Port-au-Prince and New York, and currently resides in Tiohtià:ke/Montreal. She is a curator and writer whose practice centres on creation and narration in BIPOC spaces. Denis is an advocate of Black diasporic art, critical engagement and institutional transformations through which artists and publics can co-create affective networks of radical change. She is currently head of public programs and outreach at SBC Gallery of Contemporary Art in Tiohtià:ke/Montreal. Denis previously worked at Serpentine Galleries, London, UK; Faurschou Foundation, Beijing; and, Lehmann Maupin, New York.

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