Nate Booth, visual arts lecturer at NDSU, recently landed a two-year engagement at New York art gallery Agora in the city’s trendy Chelsea district of Manhattan.
Booth’s first of two exhibitions finished an almost monthlong run July 19. The exhibit included four paintings.
“I applied in New York not thinking much of it,” said Booth, a mixed-media artist who also is showing work at the Soo Visual Arts Center in Minneapolis until Aug. 24. “Then I got a big envelope in the mail from the gallery saying they want to represent me for two years. I just thought I got on their mailing list.”
Booth, who calls himself a “nomadic artist,” is a painter, sculptor and creator of graphic novels. The Agora Gallery for Booth’s recent show chose four paintings that were completed in the last two years. Booth said he also came up with original pieces for their online presence.
According to the Agora Gallery Web site: “Booth’s collages, many of which incorporate acrylic paint and found material, present a fractured, fantastical world that pits recognizable objects and people against frightening events.”
Booth said his reception on July 11 in New York received an unexpected boost from music mogul Jay Z, who performed that night at a gallery two doors down from Agora.
“It really went well,” Booth said. “We weren’t expecting to be that busy. But Jay Z brought us tons of traffic. We had a lot of good feedback and two of the four pieces sold.”
Booth said he plans return to the Agora Gallery with six new pieces in January. He has been asked to provide surrealist work for an exhibition later this year at the University of Tennessee and is planning a solo exhibit of sculptures and mixed media work at Artifact Gallery in New York in 2015.
“Hopefully I’m building up momentum,” Booth said.
NDSU is recognized as one of the nation's top 108 public and private universities by the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education.