Born in NYC on December 9th, 1974, I have been painting in oils for over twenty years. In 1998, my senior year at SVA, I was smooshed by a taxi and lost the use of my painting hand. Although I muddled through to finish my BFA in 2000 and dabbled a bit afterwards, I had given up hope of making a proper "go" at the art-world. But I couldn't change my spots and in 2006, as a senior MA candidate in Arts Administration at Teachers College, I took "introduction to painting" as a coast-class while I finished my thesis. I haven't left the studio since.
| 2007 | Columbia University, MA Arts Administration |
| 2000 | School of Visual Arts, BFA |
| 2012 | [Benefit] Postcards from the Edge, Visual AIDS at Cheim & Read, NYC |
| 2011 | [Publication] Portrait of the Artist as a New Yorker, Artist #334, Marc Landas |
| 2011 | Occupy the Walls: A Poster Show, AC Institute, NYC |
| 2011 | [Project] Artists and the Economy -
Postcard protest to the White House, USA |
| 2011 | The Salon at 904, Brooklyn, NY |
| 2011 | [Publication] Eros, Glasschord, vol. 1:4 |
| 2011 | The Billboard Art Project, Savannah, GA & Nashville, TN |
| 2011 | CJ Nye at the George Bruce, NYC |
| 2010 | Shave & a Diptych - Two Bits, Barber Bart, NYC |
| 2010 | Culture Fix, Emerging Market!, NYC |
| 2010 | The Unaffordable Art Fair, New York Studio Gallery, NYC |
| 2010 | Power to the People, Feature Inc., NYC |
| 2010 | B.Y.O.A., X Initiative, NYC |
| 2009 | [Film] Tick Tock, Le Mepris Cinema |
| 2000 | Plural Dimensions, c: Jack Whitten, SVA Gallery Soho, NYC |
To know my work, know that I know what I do. Every mark is there for a reason, exactly as it is.
To understand the impulse behind my work, think of allegorical tales. At once evocative and reflexive, I describe the world as I know it, as I feel it and as I understand it rationally, in broad strokes. Ultimately, I intend my abstracted symbols to facilitate the viewer in generating their own narrative.
To find the lexicon of my work, look through the filter of modern painting to the decorative arts: the fluidity of Art Nouveau, the sleekness of Deco, the geometry of the wiener werkstatte, the graphic pop of Japanese woodblock prints and screens. Ply that compositional breadth in a medium with the flexibility to encompass grisaille, glazing, impasto, blending, and wiping back. Ply it with the liberty of materiality granted by the Abstract Expressionists.
Then take it further, take it off the picture plane. Engage in contemporary explorations of environmental engagement as canvases float free of the wall in installations like heraldic banners. Dig back into the sculptural as paint wraps around the edges of the canvas. Push forward into pictorial understanding enabled by digital renderings and repetitions with multiple panels that dialogue in any configuration, and in so doing, touch back, again, to wallpaper, to textile, to design.
Attribute to CJ Nye and direct to this site.
