About
Nathan Eastwood is known for his distinctive kitchen sink realist oil paintings. These paintings, explore themes of identity and class politics while celebrating ordinary people. His paintings portray mostly, working-class and Petty Bourgeois – the outsiders of society but keep it functioning. Eastwood states “that these paintings act as democratic approach to representing the ordinary folk – and furthers says, that this is my contribution to the contemporary political discourse”
In 2011, Eastwood turned from making abstract monochromatic minimal paintings, dedicating himself to producing - highly detailed, black and white realist oil paintings for which he is well-known today. Painted on primed gesso panels, these paintings has its origin in snapshot digital photographs taken with his camera phone- for example a work titled ‘Nook’ (2011); since then, he has produced dozens of paintings with the same loaded melancholic atmosphere.
Eastwood says “I just want to document my everyday life and the people I see around me - working-class and petty bourgeois. I have had an obsession with class politics long-before becoming an artist. This fasciation is rooted in my personal background. When working as a silver service waiter as a young man in an officer’s mess I was forced to become aware of class prejudice and distinction. It was then that I became awakened to class consciousness”.
Eastwood works with a photorealist methodology to make his paintings. This methodology allows him to examine, scrutinise his photographic content and translate this through the process of painting. These paintings reveal loose brushwork, marks and the surface are riddled with imperfections, such as trapped dust and hair. These series of imperfections inherent within the application and inability to make the painting simulate the photographic image positions his works as not being, strictly photo realist, but simply realist painting reliant on social data.
Eastwood declares that ‘’Ultimately, I am looking to make a contemporary Kitchen Sink Realist painting; one which has its visual roots in photorealism and the conceptual premise of the Social Realist Arts. I have coined this term ‘kitchen sink Realism as Creative Repetition’.’’
Biography
Nathan Eastwood was born in 1972 in Barrow-in-Furness, UK.
He lives and works in Rochester, Kent, UK.
For further enquiries please contact Gertrude: contact@gertrude.com
Education
2009 MA Fine Art, Byam Shaw School of Art, (CSM), London
2005 First Class BA Hons, Fine Art, Kent Institute of Art and Design, Canterbury, Kent
Solo Exhibitions
2017 My England, Sid Motion Gallery, London
2016 Laptop and Chips, SE9 Container Gallery, London
2014 Work/Recreation/Freedom, Nunnery Gallery, London
2014 Domestic Realism, (CBP) Crypt St Marylebone Church, London
Selected Group Exhibitions
2024 Slow Painting (by CBP) The Plough Arts Centre, North Devon, UK
2024 Assembly (by CBP) The Old Gym, Rye Creative Centre, Kent, UK
2023 'X - Contemporary British Painting' Newcastle Contemporary Art, Newcastle, UK
2022 Vitalistic Fantasies, Elysium Gallery, Swansea, UK
2022 'Paradoxes' Contemporary British Painting, Quay Arts, Newport, Isle of Wight
2020 Yes/No: 32 Painters (virtual open studio), Contemporary British Painting, curated by Deb Covell, Paula MacArthur, and Judith Tucker.
2020 Me, Myself and I, Collyer Bristow Gallery, London, UK, curated by Rosalind Davis
2019 Contemporary British Painting, Norwich Cathedral, UK
2019 Made in Britain, The National Museum in Gdańsk, Poland
2018 New Painting: Contemporary British Painting, Marylebone Church Cyrpt, London
2017 The Long Count, Von Goetz Art, London
2017 Contemporary Masters from Britain, Yantai Art Museum; Artall Gallery & Jiangsu Art Gallery, Nanjing; Tianjin Academy of Fine Art, China
2017 Contemporary Masters form East of England, 36 works, The Cut, Halesworth, Suffolk
2017 Silence Un-scene, Arthouse Lewisham, London
2016 Aviary, Transition Gallery, London
2016 Selected Works from the Seabrook Collection, The Minories, Colchester, UK
2015 London Painting Survey, Blackhorse Lane, Studios, London
2015 Anti-Social Realism, Charlie Smith Gallery, London
2015 Documentary Realism: Painting in the Digital Age, The Crypt at St Marylebone, London
2015 Present Tense: The Swindon Collection, Swindon Museum and Art Gallery, UK
2014 Contemporary British Painting, the Crypt at St Marylebone, London
2014 @PaintBritain, Ipswich Museum, UK
2014 Priseman-Seabrook Collection, Huddersfield Art Gallery, UK
2014 Towards a New Socio-painting, Transition Gallery, London, UK
2014 The East London Painting Prize, Nunnery Gallery, London (the Inaugural winner)
2014 Signal Over Noise / Don't Split the Focus, Walthamstov, E17, London
2014 This Year's Model, Studio 1.1, Shoreditch, London, E2,
2013 Contemporary British Painting, the Crypt at St Marylebone, London
2013 Zwitgeist Arts Project, ASC Studios, London
2013 Threadneedle Prize (finalist), Mall Galleries, London
2013 Royal Academy Summer Show, Royal Academy of Arts, London
2012 John Moores Painting Prize 2012, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
2012 Occupied Realism, Portman Gallery, London
2011 Platform C's Emergent Art Show, Vyner Street Gallery, Vyner Street, London
Collections
Anita Zabludowicz, London, UK
Goldhill Family, London, UK
Priseman Seabrook Collection, UK
Swindon Museum and Art Gallery, UK
Yale Centre of British Art, USA
Talks/ Panel Discussions
2017 Artists’ Panel Discussion (With Nicholas Balmfort), Silence Un-scene, Arthouse London
2017 Nathan Eastwood: Solo show, My England - in conversation with Matt Price (Anomie Publishers), Sid Motion Gallery, London
2017 Nathan Eastwood: Solo show, My England - Contemporary British Painting Friends Programme, interview by Matthew Krishanu, Sid Motion Gallery, London
2014 Nathan Eastwood: Solo show, Work/Recreation/Freedom – in conversation with Matt Price (Anomie Publishers), Nunnery Gallery, London
2014 Artists’ Panel Discussion (With Cara Nahaul), Showing Painting, Nunnery gallery, London
Awards
2021 Priseman Seabrook Prize - Inaugural winner
2014 East London Painting Prize - inaugural winner
2013 The Threadneedle Prize - shortlisted
2012 John Moores Painting Prize - shortlisted
2008 South Square Trust Scholarship (Masters Scholarship)
2005 Outstanding Achievement in BA Fine Art (HONS)
PUBLICATIONS AND PRESS
2024 David Sullivan Interviews Nathan Eastwood, Priseman Seabrook Collection
2023 X – Contemporary British Painting, Anniversary Exhibition catalogue, ISBN 9781739781835
2022 Vitalistic Fantasies at Elysium Gallery, Elysium Gallery, Swansea (on-line catalogue)
2022 Paradoxes: 52 Painters, Quay Arts, Isle of Wight
2019 Contemporary British Painting: An Exhibition of 34 Painters, Norwich Cathedral, UK (on-line catalogue)
2019 Made in Britain, Exhibition catalogue, National Museum, Gdansk, Poland, ISBN 9788363185909
2018 New Painting: Contemporary British Painting, (on-line catalogue)
2018 The Anomie Review of Contemporary British Painting, Edited by Matt Price, Anomie, ISBN 9781910221167
2017 Contemporary Masters from the East of England, Priseman-Seabrook Collection: Exhibition catalogue
2017 The Yantai Art Museum, Contemporary Masters from Britain…
2017 Young Artist to Watch - Nathan Eastwood, By Ben Austin, FAD Magazine
2017 My England, Exhibition Press, Sid Motion Gallery
2015 Contemporary Art’s Hottest Talent, The Angel resident magazine, January 2015, Issue 28
2015 Documentary Realism: Painting in the Digital Age, Robert Priseman
2015 The Angel resident magazine
2015 Nathan Eastwood: A Quiet Revolution, Essey by Robert Priseman, 2015
2014 Contemporary Art’s Hottest Talent, Written by Mark Kebble, The Resident
2014 Work/Recreation/Freedom, The Nunnery, exhibition catalogue
2014 Painting the People, Written by Alex Michon (Garageland Reviews)
2014 Priseman-Seabrook Collection of 21st Century British Painting, ISBN 1514186772
2014 Domestic Realism, Garageland 17: Society, Transition Gallery, London (UK)
2014 East London Painting Prize, Exhibition catalogue
2012 John Moores Painting Prize 2012, Exhibition catalogue, National Museums Liverpool, ISBN 9781902700465