NICK AGUAYO

Miles McEnery Gallery is delighted to announce an exhibition of new paintings by Nick Aguayo, on view 16 March through 22 April 2023 at 511 West 22nd Street. Accompanying the exhibition is a fully illustrated publication featuring an essay by Rochelle Steiner.

Riddled with playful color and poppy graphics, Nick Aguayo’s paintings absorb and reflect aspects of the artist’s everyday. Working simultaneously between canvases, inspiration drawn from his surroundings enters a lexicon of motifs appearing from one work to the next. Although abstract, neighborhood fixtures, thrifted fabric scraps, and shadows cast through his studio window pane all manifest in recurring geometric forms, grounded through an attunement towards classical figure-ground composition.

Physicality itself acts as a central tie between the paintings. Aguayo collages found objects amongst his chosen medium of acrylic mixed with marble dust, resulting in a tactile surface populated with ridges and grooves. The works’ physicality is further implied with each application of paint evoking the energetic immediacy of the painter’s active process.

The gestural compositions reveal Aguayo’s sensibility towards orchestrating form, culminating in a balance between superfluous spontaneity and measured mark making. Rochelle Steiner writes, “It is time, as much as spatial conditions and formal patterning, that provides the structure of and framework for Aguayo’s work… And it is time that is reflected in the visual rhythms—both planned and improvisational—that are central to his practice.”

Nick Aguayo (b. 1984 in Palm Springs, CA) received his Bachelor of Arts from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2007 and his Master of Fine Arts from the University of California, Irvine in 2012.

Aguayo has been the subject of solo exhibitions at La Loma Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (forthcoming); Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY; Vielmetter Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA; and the Undergraduate Art Gallery, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA.

His work has been included in group exhibitions at the Brand Library & Art Center, Glendale, CA; California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA; Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, CA; Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY; New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, NM; The Pit, Los Angeles, CA; Tif Sigfrids, Comer, GA; Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, CA; University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA; University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA; Vielmetter Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, and elsewhere.

His work may be found in the collections of The Bronx Museum, Bronx, NY and The Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, CA.

The artist lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.

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511 WEST 22ND STREET

16 MARCH - 22 APRIL 2023

Selected Works

Press Release