Sean Nash: Currents of Ancients
April 6 – May 26
Opening Reception | April 6 | 1-4pm | Talk at 2pm
William Least Heat-Moon’s seminal work
PrairyErth (A Deep Map) offered a new perspective of looking and engaging with the world around us. Published in 1992, the book delves into Chase County, Kansas – two counties to the south of Wabaunsee County – to find microcosms of a larger story, a concept the author called “deep mapping.”
Heat-Moon is one of many inspirations for Kansas City-based artist
Sean Nash. Focusing on fusulinids – extinct, single-celled organisms that flourished in the Flint Hills region during the
Permian Period
when a shallow sea connected the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Ocean – Nash makes a deep map through his work.
Currents of Ancients came to be after Nash spent a week at Volland in November 2023.
During his time in Wabaunsee County, Nash collected samples and made impressions of fusulinids, which can often be found in limestone. The residency led to new drawings and sculptural paintings by the artist. In their outer shape, fusulinids resemble grains of wheat, but in-section, their internal structure reveals abstracted spiraling formations. Nash uses both perspectives in his work.
Nash assembles scenes of the Flint Hills from the helical structures of fusulinids in his drawings. Although this region takes its name from flint, limestone is much more common in the Flint Hills. The soft, finely grained stone consists, in large part, of fossils like fusulinids. Depicting the landscape in this way, Nash reminds us that geological history, much like other histories, influences the world we inhabit today.
Nash’s themes of deep time and self-reflection continue in his shaped paintings. Eleven enlarged fusulinids grace Volland’s main wall in
Currents of Ancients. Nash has
previously found success
in his sculptural paintings, including an example at the new Kansas City International Airport, but at Volland, he uses individual elements to create a larger work for the first time. Within the fusulinids, the artist melds human history with plant history. For instance, the Plains Indians were presented with maize – a plant domesticated by the Mesoamericans – centuries ago. The arrival of maize altered how the Plains Indians organized themselves and changed their habits. How we manipulate food today, and its effects on us, is constantly being researched.
Looking back raises as many questions as reflecting on our present moment and possible futures.
Currents of Ancients provides an opportunity to do all these. Foregrounding fusulinids, Nash encourages us to meditate on time.
S E A N N A S H
Sean received an MFA from Yale University in painting in 2005. His sculptural paintings are currently featured at the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art in Overland Park, Kansas as part of the Charlotte Street Fellows Exhibition. He was named a 2023 Charlotte Street Fellow, an award given annually to three Kansas City based artists by the Charlotte Street Foundation. In 2022 he received a commission to create
a new piece for Kansas City International Airport. He has had solo shows at the Crossroads Hotel in Kansas City (
Land Taste , 2022), Kniznick Gallery at Brandeis University (Krautsourcing, 2019), Plug Projects in Kansas City, (Lactobacillus Amongus, 2017), and Black Ball Projects in Brooklyn, NY (They/Them/Their, 2016). Sean received a 2017 Rocket Grant Award for
Garden Variety Soda Fountain. He works in Kansas City, Kansas.
Join us at Volland on April 6th from 1-4pm for an opening reception of Currents of Ancients.
At 2pm Nash will speak with his friend and collaborator Stephanie Maroney, a feminist science & technology studies scholar whose research investigates how the human microbiome shapes our relationship to our multi-species bodies and the bodies of others. Light refreshments will be served. Free admission.
