Evan Nesbit's paintings are abstract color fields capturing a performative gesture in the
process of distributing paint and pigments to stain bleach coat and color textiles and
objects. Some of the paintings are achromatic made with small amounts of pigment dispersed in
acrylic others oversaturated in bright monochrome fluorescence. For his paintings Nesbit
often uses pressure and gravity to push paint between the fibers of natural dyed burlap causing
the synthetic pigment material to press through the fabric and dry. Through this formal
inversion the paint becomes a substrate and the burlap fabric a foregrounded image giving
equal visual importance to both while marking the presence of a painter and the process of
manipulating a panel.Nesbit works within the tradition of American impressionism color field
painting minimalism and post-minimalism as well as European movements such as Arte Povera or
Supports Surfaces.As such he is deeply committed to studying and utilizing potentials and
properties of natural and synthetic materials with regards to their aesthetic qualities as well
as the past conditions and experiences imbued within them. Nesbit's works function as paintings
by formally reordering substrates creating a sense of light and space by foregrounding the
texture and weight of supports and surfaces.Evan Nesbit (1985 in California) lives and works in
Grass Valley California. Nesbit received his BFA from San Francisco Art Institute in 2009 and
his MFA from Yale University in 2012. A recipient of the Yale University Ely Harwood Schless
Memorial Fund Prize for painting his work has been covered in the Los Angeles Times New
American Paintings and Flash Art.
