Nathlie Provosty
American, 1981-

Council, Untitled (16-38), 2016
watercolor on paper, diptych
8 1/4 × 6 in. each

SBMA, Museum purchase with funds provided by The Basil Alkazzi Acquisition Fund
2018.10.2a,b



Nathlie Provosty - undated photo

“She had in her hand a bunch of cattleyas, and Swann could see, beneath the film of lace that
covered her head, more of the same flowers fastened to a swansdown plume. She was wearing,
under her cloak, a flowing gown of black velvet, caught up on one side so as to reveal a large
triangular patch of her white silk skirt, with an ‘insertion,’ also of white silk, in the cleft of her
low-necked bodice, in which were fastened a few more cattleyas.” — Marcel Proust, “Swann‘s Way”

COMMENTS

At first glance, Nathlie Provosty's paintings appear inescapably black, like cartoon holes or thick velvet drapes. Once your eyes acclimatize to their presence, you perceive sumptuous indigos, violets, and umbers. Her paintings make me dream of the richer vocabulary for darkness our language once had. According to the great historian of color Michel Pastoreau, Old and Middle English distinguished between swart (dull black) and blaek (luminous black) — a subtle, critical distinction that is Provosty's chief compositional device. Dull and luminous darknesses embody specific meanings in what, for Provosty, amounts to a philosophical meditation…

Up close, Provosty’s surfaces radiate a particularly intense quality of care — not obsessive or oppressive, but just — a sense that everything has been properly considered and exactly attended to. This elicits meaning from the tiniest details: every distinction of sheen has been purposefully calibrated; each adjustment of the edge has a function in its larger mysterious scheme. They create faith that all is as it should be within their world, even as they remain elusive…

Nathlie Provosty's recent work is the product of deep meditation on underlying forms throughout history. Recalling Aby Warburg's “Mnemosyne Atlas”, she gathers thousands of images, arranging them into groups and subgroups, analyzing their inherent geometric structure and its relationship to the emotional content of the image. From that research, she derives basic forms which become the skeletons of her abstract paintings — sensitive and complex.

- Jarrett Earnest, Lessons in Darkness

SBMA CURATORIAL LABELS

The work of Brooklyn-based Provosty is characterized by pared-down geometric forms that emphasize the subtlety of paint’s material qualities. Through the juxtaposition of contrasting colors and shapes, she creates the illusion of multilayered depth beyond the surface of the composition. Carefully controlled and restrained, Provosty’s abstraction emphasizes the relationship between planar forms and the evocative assemblies of shapes.

- In the Meanwhile, 2020