Nathaniel Wyrick

text forthcoming

This is the beginning of a series of performances that focus on the artist’s exploration of masculinity and sexuality through the notion of “the perfect gentleman.”

The artist hopes to question the power of love and loss through the recollection of individual and collective memory, labor, and material objects. (video forthcoming)

"Searching for the Perfect Gentleman II" took place on Saturday, April 11th, 2015 at Mobius in Cambridge, MA.

Performances funded by a grant from The Boston Mayor’s Office of Arts + Culture and the Boston Art Commission. Part of the “Pop Up! Dudley Connections,” a selection of temporary public and performance art projects in Roxbury’s Dudley Square neighborhood.

Exploring ideas of memory and childhood, family traditions, the passing of a loved one, and the act of passing time, I became interested in the measure of openness one could have with these issues during fellowship with complete strangers, and the similarities that existed between individuals’ personal and geographic histories.

Through the use of a hand-built farmhouse table and bench, hand-engraved pencils, and word-search books, I began a series of performances where I invited the community to join me in passing time. 

For seven days I spent two hours at my table, offering quiet fellowship and a word-search to anyone who wanted to join me. 

Arriving for my final performance I found my table and bench had disappeared. It was a poignant reminder of the unexpectedness of loss and death.

1628 was performed in the Fenway as part of the "Earthing" performance series organized by Petrichor Performance Collective. All performances were developed and performed within the Emerald Necklace Parks.

Using four pieces of sod as a "bridge", I moved quickly from one tree to the next; only stepping on the sod. When reaching the end I would walk back, grab the last piece, place it at the front, and continue onward, repeating as necessary.

Eventually resting from exhaustion, I thought about the connections between time, work, and change while performing a laborious action.

The tree was tagged with it's planting date. 1628.

Ballads begin and I enter to 32 slip cast canning jars sitting in the form of an altar. Each jar holds a couple handfuls of blackberries: seven pounds in total.

My hands move quickly at first. I grab a jar to pull out the berries, shoving them in my mouth and smashing them over my lips until the juice flows and the stain spreads. The empty jar is then thrown against the ground, shattering around me, moving across my skin.

After a few jars my momentum slows. Pleasure begins to turn to pain; a ritual becomes a burden. I painfully continue onward, the gravity of the task becomes distressing until I reach the last jar. I stomp on it, never touching the jar with my stained hands or ingesting its hidden contents. There’s a release, defiance.

Then the cleansing begins. I shed my clothing: my jeans, my flannel, and my grandfather’s hat. I stand in white, and then I wash myself.

The milk and honey flow over my marked and soiled skin until I’m clean. Cleansed of my actions. Cleansed of my sins. Cleansed for reverence. And so I kneel. And I breathe. And I look upon what remains.

Conversation with Death

“Oh Death, oh Death please give me time, To fix my heart and change my mind.”
-Berzilla Wallin

Solving a jigsaw puzzle. From start to finish. Drinking my grandfathers homemade wine. Passing time.

I remember this simple task from my childhood. Something he did everyday. He was always sitting at the head of the dining room table; solving a puzzle, working a word-find. 

He was just passing time. A daily ritual that seemed to occupy him as if he were just waiting for death.