There is something visceral about being in the room with Robert Nava’s latest paintings, currently exhibited at PACE Gallery, London. The work is immediate. You can feel the techno mixes, by the likes of Maceo Plex and LL Cool J, in lieu of heartbeats, to which each of the figures—benevolent, evil and ambivalent—has been painted by the artist in his Brooklyn studio. When it comes to line, colour and composition, Nava is inspired by art historical masters: Picasso, Van Gogh, Pollock, Twombly, and Matisse. Nava also takes influences from Greek mythology and their sense of drama; the stolen artefacts from ancient Egypt and Greece now exhibited at the MET and the British Museum; the aesthetics and characters of 90s video games, and other assortments of pop culture items such as memes. Nava wants you to feel profoundly allowing you to make sense of the work, which is why he has, thus far, strayed from narration. ‘Thunderbolt Disco’ opens a new chapter for him.
On the two levels of PACE Gallery, ambivalent symbols of life and death are encountered. Immediately upon entering, a large-scale flaming castle appears with extending arms that turn into a shark tearing at the menacing sky. In the Half Angel, Half Alien series (2022), figures appear to have extreme cases of Irritable Bowel Syndrome as arms from their torturous glittery abdomen spill out, as if processing their inner demons. Nava’s hybrid creatures battle themselves and each other, never alluding to the winner or if the outcome is relevant.
Although he does not want to be categorised or reduced to biographical elements, Nava’s paintings are therapeutically playful and exorcise the demons that we carry within. In this Mayfair basement, you are left wondering about our primal instincts. Personally, I recall what the Bay Area based Transformative Justice Practitioner Kai Chen Thom describes as: “When we are able to admit that the capacity to harm lies within ourselves — within us all — we become capable of radically transforming the conversation around abuse.” For Thom, there are possibilities for love and healing “given the right circumstances”. In some regard, this is what Nava’s work conveys.
On the ground floor, you encounter the spiritual room. Imagine the tranquil nature of The Rothko Room at Tate Britain made over as a sequence in The Battle of Olympus video game, with neon colours, layers of spray paint, glitter, gold and painted photoshopped pixelated frames. On four walls, creatures out of the artist’s own mythology face and converse with each other and us. There is a monster that has swallowed time, a calm wolf emerging from a fountain losing its beauty spots within the landscape (a first in the artist’s work), and other creatures that are here to protect, test, send you into introspection or attack.
Nava’s paintings are coveted by Tech Bros and auction houses, and the hype is justified! - This review was written after meeting with the artist. and written by Clara Nissim
