Nathan Vincent, “The Shape of Awareness”
by David S. Rubin
Walter Maciel Gallery, Los Angeles
Continuing through October 31, 2026
The term ‘automatism’ has been used in reference to spontaneous drawing or painting, with familiar examples including the Surrealist drawings of André Masson or Roberto Matta and the Abstract Expressionist drip paintings of Jackson Pollock. This avenue for creativity was in fact championed by the psychologist Carl Jung as a means to self-realization, and Pollock himself underwent Jungian therapy.
In “The Shape of Awareness” Nathan Vincent expands the toolbox of automatist methodologies to include crocheting by stitching in an intuitive manner, with the resultant forms unfolding organically. More than a decade ago, he crocheted khaki-colored coverings for nearly life size toy soldiers made of foam armatures as a means of feminizing a male stereotype. An installation of these strategically calculated earlier works, housed here in the back gallery, serves as a conceptual counterpoint to the recent sculptures.
For the latter, Vincent worked more improvisationally, abandoning the use of armatures and instead starting with loose bundles of yarn, working additively, and inventing some of his own stitches. As can happen with automatic processes, this led him to two emblematic archetypes: the snake, which he associates with “regeneration, continuity, sensuality, and awakening,” and the hand, which he views as self-referential in that his hands do the creating, as well as symbolizing “labor, touch, care, and embodied awareness.” Additionally, his freer approach spawned an abstract vocabulary of clustering spherical shapes that suggest microscopic particles.
Vincent’s use of his own brand of stitching to create solid masses can be observed in works such as “Be Held” (2025), a sleek, wall-mounted horseshoe-shaped structure made entirely of red yarn that simulates human shoulders, arms, and open hands. While the coarse texture suggests the porousness of flesh, the hands gesture towards the viewer in an inviting way, as if an offering. A similarly stitched hand in “A Mouthful of Light” (2026) is, by contrast, confrontational. Attached to an arm that doubles as a snake, it seems to be in attack mode, clawing its way towards us. A different stitch, one that results in hexagonal patterning, was used for the creature’s body so as to resemble actual snakeskin.
A number of works explore multiple possibilities for how to employ the snakeskin pattern. Two examples, “Through a Veil” (2024) and “The Field Beneath” (2024), resemble comfy pillows, even though they hang on a wall. Several others, constructed in square format, examine organic growth itself. “A Pressing Matter” (2025) and “Before It is Released” (2025), both wall reliefs with wooden frames, consist of bundles of bulbous balls of crocheted yarn that are loosely contained with a netting of hexagonal stitching. The overall effect is that of a push/pull tension between the balls and the netting that Vincent likes to call “expansion and contraction,” echoing the lingo that Hans Hofmann applied to abstract painting in his theoretical writings of the 1930s.
The strongest sculptures are the most labor intensive and involve considerable layering. The formidable “After the Garden” (2025) is both aesthetically vibrant and metaphorically rich. Constructed by intertwining four individual snakes, each one a different color, this polychromatic mass of energy seems to undulate nonstop before our eyes. While the title links the imagery to the serpent from the Garden of Eden, the composition as a whole brings to mind the coiling snakes from the hair of Medusa. “A Place to Look Through” (2025) and “Layers of Unknown” (2026), both fashioned from overlapping webs of hexagonal stitching using maroon-colored yarns, evoke a sense of mystery, linking it to the Surrealist automatism of the 1930s. As we peer into the darkness beneath their layered latticework, we may find ourselves wondering about secrets that have yet to be revealed.
David S. Rubin is a Los Angeles-based curator, writer, and artist. As a curator, he has held positions at MOCA Cleveland, Phoenix Art Museum, Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans, and San Antonio Museum of Art. As a writer he has contributed to Art and Cake, Art in America, Arts Magazine, Artweek, ArtScene, Fabrik, Glasstire, Hyperallergic, and Visual Art Source. He has published numerous exhibition catalogs, and his curatorial archives are housed in the Smithsonian Archives of American Art.
For more information: www.davidsrubin.com
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