Nathalie Provosty was born in 1981 in Cincinnati, Ohio. She studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art and the University of Pennsylvania, as well as obtaining the U.S. Fulbright Fellowship in Painting, India.
While Provosty's work is aesthetically simple when viewed from a distance, but become more complex upon closer inspection despite the apparent reductivism of her monochromatic color palette. Made with exceptional artistic rigor and vision, her work hovers between illusion and abstraction, evoking elusive fluctuations of physical, spatial, and conceptual depth. To enhance this effect, she often plays with the matte and glossy finishes of paint, adding an almost reflective quality that helps to draw the viewer into and across the works’ layers. The poet Robert Kelly was so moved by her work that he responded to them with several poems, which were published in the book The Color Mill (2014).
Provosty lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
Selected solo exhibitions
2018
- Nathalie Karg Gallery, New York, NY
2017
- Life of Forms, A Palazzo Gallery, Brescia, Italy
2016
- (the third ear), Nathalie Karg Gallery, New York, NY
2015
- Project Space, MARUANI MERCIER, Knokke, Belgium
Selected group exhibitions
2018
- Phong Bui / Nathlie Provosty / Bill Jensen / Margrit Lewczuk, MARUANI MERCIER, Brussels, Belgium
- Gorchov / Lindman / Provosty, Ribordy Contemporary, Geneva, Switzerland
2017
- After the Fall, Peter Blum Gallery, New York, NY
- Visionary Painting: Curated by Alex Katz, Colby Museum of Art, Waterville, ME
- New Ruins, American University Museum, Washington, DC
- Man Alive, Maruani Mercier Gallery, Brussels, Belgium
Public collections
- Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Bufalo, NY
- Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD
- Colby Museum of Art, Waterville, ME
- Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, ME
- Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
- Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME
Grants and awards
- American Academy of Arts and Letters Purchase Prize, 2012
- Rosenthal Family Foundation Award, 2012
- Marie Walsh Sharpe Foundation, Space Program, 2009-10
- U.S. Fulbright Fellowship in Painting, India, 2004-05
- Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant, Montreal, Canada, 2003 and 2001
