T Marino

Nancy Lorenz is renowned for her use of materials, which range from burlap, jute and clay, to the most luxurious mother of pearl and gold leaf. A direct influence of her time in Japan as an adolescent, Lorenz’s paintings have long presented subjects of the sublime in luxurious materials most commonly associated with a craft tradition. Lorenz blurs the lines between design and high art. Initiating her process with very loose, gestural drawings in Sumi ink, her paintings evolve into incredibly lavish, worked surfaces that are as complex and moving as the elements she observes. Fusing a Japanese aesthetic with the incidental marks and unrestrained brushwork of Abstract Expressionism, Lorenz has inserted her luxurious materiality into the realm of art history. Synchronously a Minimalist in composition, a Modernist in subject matter and a master of her technique, Lorenz has developed an east-meets-west ideology that is uniquely her own. Nancy Lorenz earned a BFA in painting and printmaking at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and an MFA in painting from the Tyler School of Art, studying in Philadelphia, Rome and Japan. She is a 1998 recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim award. In 2014 and 2015, her work has been featured in exhibitions at the McNay Art Museum in Houston, the Akron Museum and the Nassau County Museum of Art. She has an upcoming exhibition at the San Diego Museum of Art in 2018. She has ongoing collaborations with many of the world's leading architects and designers including William T. Georgis, David Mann, Peter Marino, Michael Smith and William Sofield. Public commissions include Chanel stores worldwide, the Gucci Towers in Tokyo and Hong Kong, the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles and the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in the Time/Warner center in New York City. She has recently completed limited edition projects with Tomas Maier for Bottega Veneta and with jewelry designer Temple St. Clair for Paris Fashion Week. Full materials list: Red gold leaf, gesso and burlap on panel.