Natalie Wadlington is a Brooklyn-based artist who taps into her personal memories to create emotionally potent scenes. Charged with pensiveness, wonderment and a childlike tenderness, her paintings are borne out of a layered process, which begins with the artist digitally combining photographs that she has taken—of herself, flowers, sunsets, and so forth—with stock imagery. Although these collages are not replicated in the final works, they become visual and metaphorical starting points that are then reimagined on the canvas. Lusciously rendered figures and objects take on elusive meanings in Wadlington's work, bringing to mind the hieroglyphs of ages past. Wadlington's work was the subject of a solo exhibition, titled Places That Grow, at Dallas Contemporary in 2022.
Created while living in Texas, Swimming at Night is inspired by the wildlife that the artist encountered during her daily walks. The animals recalled Wadlington's childhood memories of swimming by moonlight in the Sierra Nevada mountain range, a pastime that had been associated with both fear and exhilaration. For this print series, the artist will hand embellish each work by adding metallic details to various details in the image, such as the moon, stars, swimsuit and water ripples.
Natalie Wadlington
Swimming at Night, 2023
19.5 x 19.5 inches
Archival pigment print
Edition of 15 + 5AP + 1PP
Hand-embellished, signed, and numbered by the artist
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