Nicholas Roberts: Within These Walls
Glassel Gallery
Baton Rouge
May 2-16
Stairs hang from the ceiling starting from nowhere and going to nowhere. The frame of a house encloses part of the gallery space, which contains a miniature frame for a smaller house. Clos- up prints of doors and keys are framed on the walls.
These are some of the pieces in Nicholas Roberts’ MFA thesis exhibition. LSU MFA students have presented their thesis work in short exhibits in the Glassel Gallery since March. Capping off the year, Roberts had a joint exhibition with fellow student, Jacob Mills.
“'Within These Walls' considers home as something built through labor yet sustained by care, rest and belonging.” Roberts writes in his artist statement.
When looking at houses, one doesn’t always think about all the hours of labor that went into construction. So much is focused on the finished product: Do you like the molding, or the layout of the kitchen? How many bathrooms does it have?
But every piece of the house that fits together is placed there by a skilled person. There’s so much wood we cannot see and so much we take for granted. And the work doesn’t stop at move in. A house only becomes a home because of the love and care poured into it.
“Oh if these walls could talk,” people say about different rooms where lots has happened. In Roberts’ work, they can. In the empty spaces of the mini-frame of the house, he’s placed prints of photos of the slow work of building that look to be of him and his dad (or just a father and son) working together. The larger frame that sections off part of his work makes it feel like you’re walking into a house that’s a work in progress.
The end of the school year is a natural time to reflect about home and what makes it so. Even three years post grad, I can’t say I’ve divorced myself from this tradition of reflection in May and seeing the year anew come August. Baton Rouge is about to become quieter with LSU students moving out. On Facebook Marketplace, one can see people selling off their furniture or entire dorm rooms in a set. They’re taking their homes apart for the summer and some will need to make new ones wherever they end up post graduation. It’s a quiet cycle that happens every year: the making and breaking down of the dorms that became homes for students that year.
Roberts spotlights what could otherwise be taken for granted. He takes prints of entire blocks of wood. His labor intensive mezzotints depict little moments like trying to open a locked door with a broken key and pliers. It’s these little things that feel mundane that don’t often get documented in art. This is the grain on a plank of wood before it becomes anything, he seems to be saying. These are stairs before they get you anywhere. Isn’t it beautiful?
