My Holy Place Is Not So Far: Nick Atkins

The New York-based artist's work spans the gamut of mediums: painting, drawing, ceramics, video, sound, etc, and has recently been especially centered around ancient Greek and Roman mythology. "As a kid I had this Greek mythology book that had a major influence on me," Atkins explains. "It taught me how to draw and a lot of heavy life lessons. That’s kind of the point of mythology, to explain the unexplainable to people. So I’ve been using that as inspiration."

Functioning as a form of therapy for the artist, investigating and developing the work allows him to pull apart and make sense of the world around him. "Recently, with New York City coming out of a few very difficult years, the studio process and the balance it makes in my life has been more sacred for my mental health — for my expression as a human." It's evident when speaking with him that he takes in everything with a level of care and introspection: a rare breed of artist who listens and observes more than expounds.

Read on as we have a chat about what he's been up to lately.

Paige Silveria— Do you have any shows coming up that you’re focusing on?

Nick Atkins— No and that’s been really nice. I’ve gone through different aspects in my career as a painter and now I’m just focused on making a body of work that’s really meaningful to me and inviting people that I could potentially work with or show with, or whatever — just conversations. I’ve realized that it’s a big, big part of being an artist, inviting people over and having conversations in the studio about the work that I’m making. Peers, gallerists, collectors, whatever. Recently, it’s something that I’ve been like, “Wow I really need to do this more.”

PS— The last time we did an interview four years ago, we spoke about Hanji Party, this world you created within where you contended with ideas of personal darkness and society overall.

NA— That was a narrative that I was working with to explain things that were going on with me and also to access inspiration imagery to make work by telling a story. Now I’m not telling that specific constant continuation of that one story. I’ve still been using mythology and history to make work. It comes from a similar place of personal stories, but it’s broader. Lately I’ve been thinking about American society. I’ve started at the beginning, at Greek and Roman mythology. As a kid I had this Greek mythology book that had a major influence on me. It taught me how to draw and a lot of heavy life lessons. That’s kind of the point of mythology, to explain the unexplainable to people. So I’ve been using that as inspiration, comparing these stories to what’s going on today and what kind of feels like — well it’s harsh to say — but a collapse, or a change. Last time we talked, I was thinking a lot about societal change and now it’s a little bit more connected to real history rather than a personal history. And adding my style and twist, my interpretation. Learning them as a child, living them and looking at them again as an adult.

PS— Can you give me an example of one of the stories from the book that stood out to you when you were young?

NA— There’s just so many. It’s all of these connections of humans to nature and the elements and higher-power gods and goddesses. Then human to human, what they do to each other. A lot of the heavy stuff. I loved the idea that there were all of these half-man, half-nature things. These creatures were our closest connection to nature before we took a different path. Now we say that those things don’t exist. That’s just mythology. We worship one god and it’s not nature. It’s something else. I like the idea that there were spirits and that we interacted with them. There were people that were river spirits and they lived in the river, which they represented. I’m working on a portrait of one of those river spirits. But it also kind of looks like my dad in a weird way. So there’s that weird connection too. And that’s what I’m working on recently, and some funky frogs and some of those other guys called satyrs or fawns.

PS— What do you think Freud would say about your dad appearing as the river spirit?

NA— I don’t really know Freud, but all my friends used to call my dad Zeus. He was big and bearded. One time when he was mad at us he hurled a big bag of charcoal into the sky. They all called him Zeus after that — so I’m sure there’s some Freud shit there.

PS— Going back to the idea of collapse, do you not think that there’s progress?

NA— Sometimes I think the progress is the collapse: AI, social media, global war. I’m a big believer in the human race as a whole and in nature and the world. So regardless, whatever is going to be is going to be. I don’t necessarily see much progress, especially here in New York City, as society goes, but I’m hopeful. It’s not like a depressing look on society. Throughout human history there have been rises and falls in human society and we study those throughout our educational system: the Greeks, the fall of the Roman Empire. There is sometimes a rise and sometimes a fall.

PS— This feels timely, when religion is at its lowest and people are having an existential crisis, looking to ideas like astrology to connect to something bigger than themselves.

NA— Yeah I don’t know a lot about astrology but when you look at the imagery, it looks like stuff from Ancient Greece maybe? When you’re talking about Orion’s Belt up in the night’s sky, Orion was a character in a Greek myth using the position of the moon to analyze our existence. We’re trying to find those relationships between ourselves and nature to make ourselves feel better. I certainly think it’s a mix of spirituality on a daily basis that’s a huge part of my relief, my savior. What those images look like now is something interesting for me to explore as well. The visuals and the symbols of those things, like Orion’s Belt and other mythological images that we’ve seen throughout our lives. They’re around. They’re logos of clothing brands. It’s like, “Wait, what do these mean?” We still use them to a certain extent, but we just don’t worship them. Or maybe to a certain extent we do. So I’m just taking a look at those certain connections to spirituality and icons. Just getting a clearer perspective through conversations like this of what I’m trying to do.

PS— Tell me about the fountains. They’re some of my favorite works and so clearly yours.

NA— I assemble the fountains here. [pointing across the room] That closet is insane, just full of all the pumps and pools and all the aspects that create the assemblages. I like them as a symbol for a person, society, for beautiful things in public. I actually don’t think they really have come to a conclusion on whether historically people made fountains for washing clothes or because they liked the sound of water falling and interactive sculptures. I think they’re just as aesthetically pleasing and therapeutic as functional. I like them for all of those reasons. I also like exploring and manipulating the way that I look at a fountain. They move and make noise, which is nice. And you can’t control them really. You can try.

PS— So this issue is about New York. It’s the magazine’s 20th anniversary issue. You’ve been in NYC for a long time. Can you reflect on your years here?

NA— Yeah! I love New York even more every day. I really enjoy being here. I feel that cities are a lot like people and you can get down with certain types of people and some you just can’t. I can get down with New York very easily. A lot has changed. I’ve lived here for about 25 years. Every day I wake up and get to walk out of here I’m super grateful. Every time I pass over a bridge and get a shot of the skyline or look at the water, or just get to walk. This morning I walked seven or eight miles for no real reason. The layout, the geography, my understanding of the city, just allows me to feel comfortable and at home. I’ve never really felt that way anywhere else. Even in my childhood home, I never felt comfortable. But here, this is like Mecca. It’s a holy place for me.

PS— You left New York for a bit at one point. Did you feel like you needed to do that?

NA— Yeah I started blaming a lot of my own personal issues on the city when I was at a certain age and point in my life. When really I was the problem. Once I identified that, I started working on it. I needed to leave, I think, to come back and realize just how much I get out of living here. And it’s not an easy or simple place to live. But it’s the place for me.

PS— What are some of the struggles, do you think, living here?

NA— A lot of the societal issues I was referencing before. We’re coming out of a shaky economic time. Police seem to be going through their own thing. A lot of mental health issues, drugs on the street like K2 and fentanyl that didn’t exist 10 years ago.

PS— What is K2?

NA— It’s this synthetic marijuana that a lot of people are smoking. I’ve never tried it but it seems to put people into a slightly schizophrenic trance.

PS— Yikes. Why would someone want to put themselves into that?

NA— For a number of reasons! I actually got into a big dispute with one of the guys that sells K2 in my neighborhood. I was like, “Look I just want to talk this out because I’m going to see you every day. I’m not trying to fight.” So we talked it out. I think he said he got the shit for like 400 bucks a pound and made thousands of dollars off of it. There’s no legislation for it yet so police can’t convict him for it. And he just explained that if he’s going to survive, this is what he’s going to have to sell. So I see socially that there are reasons and this is just where we’re at. But it affects people now in a very different way than other drugs did years ago. And like fentanyl, for instance, if you’re just a young kid and you’re trying to party, you buy a bag of coke and it has fentanyl and your fucking friend dies. That didn’t used to happen! Like people would die, but it was very different. Like they were really pushing it and it was heroin or they blew up their head or hung themselves. It was a very distinct difference. It’s getting pretty murky and severe. And those things affect how a person interacts with the city, with the way they’re partying or the way they’re interacting in the street. That’s certainly a change and an intense one. Also, that’s just how it is. I accept it all. I’m not sure what it means, but it’s definitely a societal change. I’m glad I had that conversation with that guy. It’s easy to look down on certain things, or be upset about it. It’s hard to see the other angle and be like, “Okay this is just part of what’s going on now.” I can accept it or not. And New York kind of like, the more you accept what’s going on, the better the time you’re going to have here.

Art

Pamela Sneed’s Speaking Tongue opens at Dashwood Projects

November 15, 2024

Pamela Sneed’s latest exhibition, Speaking Tongue, will be on view at Dashwood Projects from November 20 to December 21. The show features twenty watercolor and ink paintings inspired by her recent trip to Kenya, where she was deeply moved by the elegance of giraffes, the landscapes, and the energy of Nairobi.

Blending her background as a poet and visual artist, Sneed’s work reflects on themes of identity, nature, and connection. Her paintings capture the beauty and spirit of the animals she encountered, alongside reflections on her own experiences as part of the African diaspora.

This exhibition marks Sneed’s first solo show with Dashwood Projects and will be accompanied by a new book, also titled Speaking Tongue, to be released in December.

By Enzo Holdt
Artworks by Pamela Sneed

Art

Tiebreaker - Alvin Armstrong

November 15, 2024

There is a moment of silence right before the play. Just before the racket strikes the ball as it hangs weightless in the air, breathless and charged. It’s the fleeting yet decisive instant that can alter the course of the match, determining who wins and who loses.

Alvin Armstrong depicts this crucial moment in his new exhibition Tiebreaker, symbolizing the risks and rewards of competition. It’s an implication of something else at stake, where athletes push not only their bodies, but their spirits to the absolute limit.

The dynamic figures embody the strength, grace, and agility juxtaposed by the vibrant color palette evoking not just the joy of competition but the charged energy of the court.

Tiebreaker is opening Thursday, November 16th at Anna Zorina Gallery.

By Rea Brayshaw
Artworks by Alvin Armstrong

Art

The Things People Are Ashamed To Take Photos Of: The Photography and Films of Yuhan Cheng

Yuhan’s latest exhibition of photo and video work titled 窗子外 Outside the Window, Inside the Tank 鱼缸里 takes its namesake from what could’ve been a mundane encounter. A month after moving to New York City from Chengdu, China, they stumbled across an abandoned fish tank left curbside. It reminded them of “the rotating fish in a tank that faded into the background of their mother’s home in Chengdu”, a thread connecting childhood familiarity that transformed into a symbol of greater significance in adulthood. A tank is a world within a world; a microcosm secluded from the broader chaos of the outside. Since then Yuhan has captured the other kinds of “fish tanks” closest to them in their photography and short films. Not literal ones necessarily– but intimate confined spaces in Chengdu and NYC where time stands still.

In the midst of taking snapshots of loved ones, Yuhan decided to turn their tender but examining lens on themselves. They realized shooting self-portraits unraveled a deeper understanding of their own nonbinary gender and queer sexuality. Yuhan admits in one of their short films “I hide from looking at my own body.” Yet, in the seclusion of their room which doubles as a dark room, Yuhan began to develop their first nude photos chronicling the subtle wounds; bitten cuticles, bruises, and scrapes they’ve accumulated involuntarily, once again documenting the things people choose to hide.

窗子外 Outside the Window, Inside the Tank 鱼缸里, debuted at FAR-NEAR Studio Hours a gallery in Chinatown focused on expanding the art world's view of Asia and Asian artists curated by Lulu Yao Gioiello. The event merged Yuhan’s works from the past three years, including 70 photographs, three short documentaries, and one installation. There was something uncanny about the gallery’s atmosphere – from the dollar store teal green curtains obscuring every window to the clusters of framed photos mimicking how photos of relatives are displayed in one’s childhood home, to the darkened lighting that was both disorienting and cozy. All these details were meticulously chosen to imitate the rooms depicted in Yuhan’s films and photography. In other words, the audience was invited to Yuhan’s “fishtank”, to share the odd balance of comfort and unease of being known intimately. We talked to Yuhan at Cafe Reggio to understand how their latest body of work came into being.

Initially, I was exploring my friends’ identities through the lens, but slowly, it became a tool to confront and understand my own queerness and gender identity.

Ora Margolis— Were any memories/childhood experiences you had in Chengdu important to how you've developed as an artist?

Yuhan Cheng— Growing up in Chengdu, especially in a military household, shaped and gave me a source of contention how I understood my identity. There was always a sense of conflict when it came to my body and feeling like I didn’t quite fit the expectations around me. This tension has been a driving force in my practice, pushing me to explore identity and belonging in my work.

Tell us a bit about your latest exhibition Outside the Window, Inside the Tank at Far. What headspace were you in when taking these photos?

YC— Outside the Window, Inside the Tank is about the fluidity of self; our bodies, our environments, and our identities. The idea of water as both a symbol of confinement and freedom is central to the photos and film that comprise the exhibit. This fluidity much like how I see my experience moving between Chengdu and New York, where similar feelings follow me no matter where I am. Water mirrors the body, the frame, and the room, which are all containers of the self.

Previously, you’ve said you wanted the exhibition space to look "like your room". How did you make that happen and why is your NYC room important to you?

YC— My room in NYC is an extension of my identity. It’s where I feel vulnerable and where I explore myself most openly. It’s a manifestation of my sense of self. I recreated certain elements in the exhibition—the green sheer curtains, the dollar store shower curtain with bubbles, and the center installation depicted a self-portrait deteriorating in water, reminiscent of a fish in a tank. This room, like any other room or container, magnifies the tension of self-exploration.

Has your idea or comfort with your gender identity and /sexuality changed since you’ve delved into photography?

YC— Yes. The process of photography and filming has been a mirror to my own understanding of self. Initially, I was exploring my friends’ identities through the lens, but slowly, it became a tool to confront and understand my own queerness and gender identity. The process of photographing my queer friends and then myself allowed me to come to terms with who I am.

How did you and Lulu Yao of FAR-NEAR Studio meet, and what makes her a good collaborator?

YC— We first connected when I reached out with my series Princess of Funan River. Lulu understood the struggles and complexities in the work and she invited me to expand on those ideas with her. Our collaboration has worked because Lulu truly resonates with the themes I’m drawn to, like fluidity, transformation, and the intimacy of navigating belonging.

After completing Fish Tank and Remnants of an Amateur Film, what kind of movie do you want to make next?

YC— Right now, I’m more focused on writing. I need to understand what I want to say before making another film. Writing helps me find clarity;it’s a crucial part of my process.

What kind of camera do you use and why?

YC— I use a Canon AE-1. I started with it and I still love it. It's small, spontaneous, easy to use, and light. It allows me to capture moments naturally without overthinking.

What's your biggest fear?

YC— Being disconnected from my sense of self, from others, and from the things I love.

When do you feel most like yourself?

YC— It’s during those fleeting moments when I complete a project. That feeling fades quickly, leaving me searching for the next project to reconnect with that sense of fulfillment.

How do you want people to feel when they interact with your art?

YC— I want them to feel whatever resonates with them. I don’t want to prescribe the experience; it should feel right for each person.

Your work focuses on the close knit communities that surround you or various metaphorical “fish tanks”. What communities do you feel closest to?
YC— The queer artist community, both in Chengdu and NYC, has been a source of comfort and understanding for me. There’s something about shared struggles and shared creative language that feels like home.

What's the biggest difference between living life as a queer artist in NYC and in Chengdu?

YC— In both NYC and Chengdu, I’m learning more about myself. NYC offers a sense of freedom, while Chengdu is home, a place of comfort and history. Neither place defines me but both are significant parts of my path.

What are your next moves/goals?

YC— I want to continue exploring both film and photography, expanding my narrative style and experimenting across mediums. During my show, I found new ways of seeing my photographs such as by adding a window screen between frames or letting a self-portrait fade and grow mold in water. These approaches allowed me to see my work not just as 2D images but as 3D objects.

I want to keep pushing the boundaries of how photo and film can interact, and I’m also interested in trying photojournalism. My focus remains on collaborating across mediums and continuing to accumulate experiences that I can translate into sincere honest work.