Juxtapoz Magazine - Nicolas Party "Dead Fish" @ Karma, New York

"In , Nicolas Party surveys his practice through oil-on-copper paintings, each of which is a small-scale reworking of an earlier composition. While copying himself, Party also engages the long art-historical tradition of reproducing paintings by the masters: from Francisco Goya's Still Life with Golden Bream (1808-12), he has created a direct pastel-on-linen study. The study inspired a related oil-on-copper still life of Party's own, which in turn became the basis of the pastel mural at the apex of the exhibition."

"A low, arched doorway invites viewers into the exhibition's first room. Coated in a dusty Rococo pink, its walls set the mise-en-scène for a cast of painted characters reprising past roles. Like Marcel Duchamp's Boîte-en-valise (1935-41)-a suitcase containing small replicas of the artist's major works-the exhibition is a kind of Wunderkammer, or cabinet of curiosities, presenting specimens from the past thirteen years of Party's life."

"Through the ritual act of repainting, the artist engages in the devotional tradition of the Renaissance altarpieces and triptychs that have informed various facets of his practice, from his use of arched canvases and doorways to his choice of copper as a substrate: the metal was most popular at the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth centuries, when artists used it to create their own reverential images."

Nicolas Party presents small oil-on-copper paintings that rework earlier compositions and engage long-standing practices of reproduction and reinvention. He creates pastel-on-linen studies after masters like Francisco Goya, then translates those studies into oil-on-copper still lifes and a large pastel mural. The exhibition functions as a Wunderkammer, displaying scaled-down reduxes from thirteen years of work across portraiture, still life, and landscape. Party converts hand-blended pastel transitions into precise oil strokes on copper and evokes devotional Renaissance formats through arched canvases and doorways. Figures appear androgynous with uncanny skin tones, collapsing historical reference into contemporary reimagining.

Read at Juxtapoz