TUDO QUE ACHO
NATHAN GRAY

DECEMBER 4 - 20 2008

Nathan Gray spent two months in Brazil producing a body of work entitled ‘Tudo Que Acho’. In English the title translates as ‘Everything I Think’ but in Portuguese it has a double meaning because to think and to find are the same idea. So the title is a pun on the the act of collecting to form and inform perceptions, a blurring of the boundaries between experiences and ideas.

Itaparica Island, Bahia the setting of the piece is a stronghold of Afro-Brazilian culture. Despite slavery's attempted decimation, African cultural practises still dominate though synthesised with Catholicism and mutated to suit the Brazilian environment. Magic, multiplicity and movement have been bred by the landscape and the ocean.

Resisting sensationalism Nathan relied on his experiences rather than research to understand this highly charged atmosphere, approaching Itaparica with a variety of strategies.

This set of experiments became an installation linking these elements literally. Drawing comparisons, creating lines of movement flowing in and around his open air studio and out into the garden. These disparate elements are linked together, mapping a flow of ideas and defining the perimeter of a zone of concepts - in - confluence in which Itaparica, as he saw it, existed. A zone in flux agitated by the wind, frequented by animals and used a setting for music and improvisation.