Not Paint Sculpture

Nadine Beauharnois is an artist living and working in Philadelphia. She is a member-owner of the artist-run gallery AUTOMAT Collective. Artist Statement: Discomfort is a large part of the human experience, and humor can be an effective point of entry for examining awkward, cringe-worthy, and laughable moments. My work explores humor primarily through gesture and bright color. I give my sculptures distorted, reaching, somewhat figurative elements like eye or tongue-like shapes, toe or finger-like protrusions, and other familiar, yet nondescript, appendages. I often make color choices in response to something I’ve seen, such as a compelling textile, memorable landscape, or animal fur. Bright, saturated color can indicate lightheartedness and play, and I like the tension between “harmless” color and lumbering, slightly uncomfortable-looking gesture. Variations in the surface textures: flaky and skin-like elements adjacent to slick and plastic-like elements, for example. I want these juxtapositions to suggest that the work is molting, melting, being flayed, or undergoing some other form of transformation.