(b. 1991 Singapore, lives and works in Los Angeles)
Nabilah Nordin’s materially driven practice explores the formal possibilities and surface potential of sculpture. Her elaborate abstract works are unruly, interlacing calligraphic lines with voluminous masses in dense configurations. Beginning by welding steel armatures, Nordin exaggerates the physicality of her forms so that they seem to defy gravity, teetering on the edge of collapse and multiplying uncontrollably. She is primarily interested in expressing the physicality of tension – how sculpture can embody the underlying forces of natural phenomena, such as growth, depletion, decay, collapse, and entanglement. Her structures often appear precarious, propped up with stilts, scaffolds, and makeshift supports borrowed from the industrial world, interrupting the logic of their organic shapes.
The surfaces of her sculptures are subjected to an expansive range of treatments, from 17th century faux-marble plaster and ancient lime clay techniques to automative spray, oxidizing rust paint and bronze casting. When these methods are applied to her contorted forms, they produce contradictory visual logics, like knotted marble, or convulsing cement. Nordin persistently undermines the expectations of her chosen mediums, upending the material hierarchies and aesthetic values associated with her materials. Though the works may first evoke associations – weathered artefacts, complex machinery, or lyrical scriptures – these readings unravel upon closer inspection. By resisting familiar references, the works demand a visceral engagement, one rooted not in recognition, but in sensation, presence, and material vitality.
Nabilah Nordin has exhibited at museums, biennales and galleries across Australia, Asia and the USA. She has held solo exhibitions at Parrasch Heijnen, Los Angeles; the Australian Embassy, Washington DC; the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Singapore Biennale; Changwon Sculpture Biennale, South Korea; Neon Parc, Melbourne; and Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne. Her work has been included in group shows including Parrasch Heijnen, Los Angeles; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Bundanon Art Museum, Bundanon; Monash University Museum of Art; RISING, Melbourne; McClelland Sculpture Park and Gallery, Melbourne; La Loma, Los Angeles; Murray Art Museum, Albury. Nordin completed a Master of Contemporary Art at the Victorian College of the Arts in 2015, and a Bachelor of Fine Arts at RMIT University in 2013.
Neon Parc, Melbourne
Parrasch Heijnen, Los Angeles
Washington DC, United States
Art Gallery of New South Wales
Neon Parc, Cologne, Germany
Neon Parc, Melbourne
Heide MOMA, Melbourne
Missing Persons, Melbourne
COMA Gallery, Sydney
Changwon Sculpture Biennale, South Korea
Singapore Biennale, Singapore
Make Room x Meeting Point Projects, Los Angeles
Carl Larsson x Invisible Dynamics, Los Angeles
RISING, Melbourne
La Loma, Los Angeles
National Art School, Sydney
Futures Gallery, Melbourne
Parrasch Heijnen, Miami Beach
Parrasch Heijnen, Los Angeles
COMA Gallery, Sydney
Neon Parc, Melbourne
Bundanon Art Museum
National Gallery of Victoria
4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art
Canberra Art Biennial
McClelland Sculpture Park and Gallery
Fiona and Sidney Myer Gallery, Melbourne
RISING, Melbourne
Murray Art Museum Albury, Albury
Art Gallery of South Australia
through Sculpture
Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne
Thames & Hudson
Vogue, Australia
Parrasch Heijnen
KCRW Art Insider
ABC Radio National
Art Gallery of New South Wales
Vogue, Australia
The Saturday Paper
Catalogue Essay
Art Collector
MeMO
Heide Catalogue Essay
Art Guide
Art Collector
Frieze Magazine
Art Collector
Catalogue Essay
Berita Harian
Art & Australia
Art Asia Pacific