Nathan paints relentlessly

Local artist on the rise prepares for show, discusses creative process

Photo Gallery

Where Petals and Rain Fall

Charleston artist Nathan Durfee is a star on the rise. He has gained national attention for his dream-like paintings and unconventional, colorful style. His latest show, "Where Petals and Rain Fall" is on display at Robert Lange Studios, 151 East Bay Street. Here are some examples of his work.

Nathan paints relentlessly

Local artist on the rise prepares for show, discusses creative process

'Welcome to the last six months of my life," says Nathan Durfee as I walk into his studio/apartment.

Durfee-esque characters, each deeply involved with what they're doing, fill the entire space — canvases are neatly aligned on the couch, desk, table, bed, walls. I wonder if this is what the inside of Durfee's head is like: hundreds of colorful characters bouncing around, exploring what it means to be alive.

And Durfee, 25, certainly bounces his own way. He's sometimes quiet and slightly shy with an adorable nerdiness, sometimes loud and funny, definitely always brilliant, and definitely always himself. Let's see if we can get inside his head as he prepares for his upcoming exhibit of new material, "Where Petals and Rain Fall," which starts Friday at Robert Lange Studios, 151 East Bay St.

Q: When did you discover your passion for art?

A: I remember exactly when I started drawing. It was in fifth-grade math class because I was bored. Back then, it was mostly robots and superheroes. I would try to cram as many muscles as I could into their arms. Since I didn't have any anatomy or drawing training, it was always like 18 bicep muscles, costumes, laser beams, etc. Doodling in notebooks really stuck with me although I never spent more than one class period on a drawing. I was more interested in how many crazy characters I could create.

In high school, my art teacher pushed me away from superheroes and doodling, and in a sense, took the ADD out of my artwork and encouraged me to flesh things in to complete projects.

I was planning on studying biochemistry until a graduate of the Savannah College of Art and Design visited our school senior year. He showed us concept sketches of his character designs for video games. I fell in love with the work and the idea of translating your doodles into something a lot more involved. The idea of seeing something in the mainstream that you've created really blew my mind, and it was a big shift. I ran home and said, "Mom! Dad! I want to go to art school." They said, "You're crazy."

During that last year of high school, I really buckled down, jumped into an AP art class and started working on my portfolio. I've had that single-minded goal in life ever since.

Q: And what exactly is your goal?

A: I want to be the best painter I can possibly be. I used to ski a lot, and my dad always used to tell me it's all about "time on the hill." "You're never going to get better unless you spend more time on the hill skiing." I believe that as long as you spend time painting, you will get better. You can get better quicker by working smarter, but in the end, it's all about paint, paint, paint, paint.

Q: So you then attended SCAD to study illustration and started developing your patchwork style.

A: The patchwork style began toward the very end of art school. When you draw from life, you first break things down into basic shapes and planes. As long as you get those shapes and shadows, then the face will come out. I would notice colors in the shadows and would really accentuate those color variances. If it was just a little bit green, I would put green in that plane. With time, those planes and shapes and brush strokes of different color were slowly trimmed and refined until they became little squares.

Last year, with the "Celebrations of Stems and Clouds" exhibit, I was merely scratching the surface of my patchwork style. This time, with the "Where Petals and Rain Fall" body of work, I have tried to take those characters in their patchwork and throw them into a bit more realistic reality with more depth and setting. Like in "Patrick Waiting Patiently," he's sitting on a huge tree and there's a horse in the background.

Q: Tell us about your creative process.

A: The creative process for me has three stages. First, I lay down random brush strokes, find shapes and then those shapes start becoming things. That's when I shift to Step 2, where shapes and forms start becoming characters. Then I ask myself, "Why did I create this person? Why is he here?" The third stage is where I inject a story. Maybe he's reaching up, but his arms are too short; maybe there's something really annoying that's attached to his head, but his muscles are too large and he can't touch his neck. I try to insert a conflict, and then I have the concept for a painting.

Q: It seems like a lot of your subjects have conflicts, and I don't mean conflict as being a negative thing.

A: Thank you for saying that because I don't think conflicts are necessarily bad things. You need those emotions. There's something beautiful about being drenched in a rainstorm while biking home because you know when you get there you're going to take a hot shower, get some tea and cozy up.

You need that storm to truly appreciate what happens when you get home. I'm trying to walk the tight rope between bittersweet. I try to bring the beauty out of any emotion — anger, nostalgia, stress, anxiety ... are all things that are beautiful in their own right.

You don't need a happy unicorn and a rainbow to create something beautiful.

Q: Most of your paintings convey a story. This is especially apparent with your titles.

A: They're more often a page in a story. I'm not concerned with how they got there, and I may provide hints of where they are going, but I'm more interested in the present moment, one where they have reached a fork, or a certain pathway they need to go down. For example, I might paint Rapunzel up in a tower, but she's not that stereotypical long-blond-haired girl. She's more modern with short, dark hair, and the prince below is like, "Why didn't you grow your hair long?" That would play into the idea of needing to have long, blond hair in order to catch your man. It becomes a pun of that whole relationship.

Q: Even though you have more profound thoughts behind them, your characters are charming, creative and very approachable.

A: I like to try to give the viewers something they're comfortable with; I try to bring a 5-year-old's mentality to my paintings. At that age, you haven't developed any masks or walls or faces, it's just you, a very simple ball of clay. It's something we lose when we grow up.

For example, nudity in my paintings.

When I paint someone nude, I'm not trying to render the beauty of the form, or paint in a scandalous or sexual way. It's more in the way a 4-year-old would walk in the middle of a restaurant completely naked. He doesn't know the social connotations that we've developed about our reproductive organs.

Q: How has your work evolved?

A: My show last year, "Celebrations of Stems and Clouds," was exactly that, a celebration. My new show (my first solo show at Robert Lange Studios), "Where Petals and Rain Fall," is a more fleshed-out, developed version of that first show, but a bit more somber. It's like the feeling of the tents being taken down after the show, and the songs change, the people are packing up, and the sun's about to rise.

The new work is really about me refining, learning and going deeper into what was merely touched and explored in last year's show.

Emotionally and technically as an artist, I'm really starting to figure out what I want and how to express myself.