PACE – Robert Nava: Thunderbolt Disco
13 May - 25 June, 2022
Opening Reception: May 13, 2022, 6 – 8 PM
Pace Gallery is pleased to announce Thunderbolt Disco, Robert Nava’s first exhibition in the UK. Taking over the entirety of Pace’s Hanover Square gallery, this exhibition showcases new paintings by the American artist in his distinctive visual lexicon of fantastical characters and forms.
After receiving his MFA in Painting at Yale University in 2011, Nava dedicated his practice to developing a unique cast of characters that occupy his paintings. Nava draws from a diverse array of visual and conceptual sources that include mythology, philosophy, religion, and ancient history as well as video games, monsters, and the animal kingdom. Of his work he has stated, ‘I wanted to return to my childhood interests. I wanted to see these fabled creatures in my studio. I’m interested in a new kind of mythmaking, even though there are no real stories behind them yet. It opened up a world of imagination while preserving a childlike drive.’ Nava’s rejection of the constructed boundaries that separate ‘high’ and ‘low’ art forms the core of his approach to painting. His work refers to the legacies of artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jean Dubuffet, and Cy Twombly, who also favored a more gestural, imaginative, and energetically raw style of working.
