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= Nathan Lynch = Nathan Lynch is an American sculptor who primarily works with ceramic materials. He studied at the University of Southern California with Ken Price and later earned an MFA at Mills College with Ron Nagle.(6) He works in a variety of mediums including clay, wood, glass, and performative storytelling.

Biography
Lynch was raised in Pasco, Washington - an agricultural community in the shadow of Hanford Nuclear Power Plant.(3) The futility of this environmental contradiction provided Lynch with an acute sense of location and deep appreciation for irony. His work as the prop master for a local community theatre left lasting effects of which are still being realized in his current body of work. Lynch explores “concerns for political conflict and environmental upheaval (which) are filtered through notions of absurdity, hand fabrication and the dramatic devices of storytelling.”(3) His attention to wit has sparked the statement of “the West’s brightest young conceptualist since Charles Linder” (4)with the sole intention to make ceramics as wide open, strange and far reaching as possible.(7) Lynch is best known for his ceramic sculptures which primarily consist of abstract shapes and blobs; the work is often glazed and given titles referencing the political state during the time the piece was sculpted.(9)

Education
Lynch studied at the University of Southern California with Ken Price where he graduated Magna Cum Laude in 1997 and later earned an MFA at Mills College with Ron Nagle in 1999.(6)

Residencies
Lynch is represented by the Rena Bransten Projects; an artistic program including both established and emerging artists whose work engages with contemporary social and cultural climates with origins residing in ceramic sculpture. Other residencies include(6):

2013 Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Snowmass Village, CC

2012 Mills College, Oakland, CA 2012 Chalkhill Residency, Healdsburg, CA

2011 Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, CA 10-12 Exploratorium, San Francisco, CA

2007 Tainan National University of the Arts, Taiwan

2007 Southern Exposure, San Francisco, CA

01-03 Headlands Center for the Arts, Affiliate Artist

Teaching Career
Lynch is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Ceramics and Glass Programs at California College of the Arts.(3)

Projects
Lynch has made collaboration and experimentation the major components of his practice. Recent projects include his exhibition Dead Reckoning for Bay Area Now 7 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, a residency with the Exploratorium(6) in San Francisco, and nest module design for the Cassin's Auklet on Año Nuevo Island(8), as well as his functional ceramic water fountain DoubleDrink at the Headleads Center for the Arts.(5)

Performances
Lynch has frequently presented his sculptures in the company of several narrative artists like Michael Swaine and Kari Marboe. His intention is to complicate the relationship between the object, text, and viewer while exploring the power stories have on influencing the understanding of an object. His performances include(6);

2011 Six stories, Harrison Street Studio, San Francisco, CA

2009 40 Minutes, 16 stories, Project Artaud, San Francisco, CA

2007 Between Courses: Pie Delivery; Southern Exposure, S. F., CA

2003 The Lowtones: Chamber Music; Lincoln Center, New York, NY Where is Your Wheel? Fringe Festival, Edinburgh, Scotland Airpocket: ON THE RUNWAY, Bumpershoot, Seattle, WA The Fountain Etudes, Taplin Concert Hall, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ

Exhibitions
SOLO EXHIBITIONS(6);

2014 Another High, Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco, CA

2012 A Way of Fixing Everything, Sierra Nevada College, NV

2010 Respect Yourself, Curiosity Shoppe, San Francisco, CA

2007 Everything’s Going South, Johansson Projects, Oakland, CA Between Courses, Southern Exposure, San Francisco, CA

2005 Highball or Hail Call, Jackson Street Gallery, San Francisco, CA The Sweetspot, Museum of Contemporary Art, Santa Rosa, CA Together and Alone, Santa Ana College, Santa Ana, CA

2004 UNDERCOVER, Richmond Art Center, Richmond, CA

2002 Room for the Longest Word, Olive Hyde Gallery, Fremont, CA

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS(6);

2015 Conversations, Paradise Ridge Winery, Santa Rosa, CA

2014 BAY AREA NOW 7, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA Magical Thinking, Root Division Gallery, San Francisco, CA Kilnopening, American Museum of Ceramic Art, Pomona, CA

2013 Traces and Accumulations, Traywick Contemporary, Berkeley, CA

2013 The Long Conversation, Southern Exposure, San Francisco, CA

2011 Breaking Ranks, Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, CA

2010 Presidio Habitats, Park Presidio, San Francisco, CA Shadowshop by Stephanie Syjuco, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA

2009 Contemporary Sculpture, Western Colorado Center for the Arts, Grand Junction, CO

2008 Dead Spaces, Overhung 4, Lobot Gallery, Oakland, CA Hopeless and Otherwise, Southern Exposure, San Francisco, CA

Año Nuevo Island
Since 2009, Lynch has worked with Matthew Passmore of MORELAB (formerly REBAR) and Oikonos Ecosystem Knowledge to design and fabricate nest modules for seabirds in peril. Oikonos Ecosystem Knowledge is a non-profit ecology and conservation organization working to restore degraded bird habitat on Año Nuevo Island, a state nature preserve and one of only a handful of islands off the coast of California.(9) The island is home to a number of marine mammals and bird species, including the Rhinoceros Auklet and the Cassin’s Auklet, a state-listed species of concern.(1) Due to the Auklets single egg production and long incubation period in the midst of severe land erosion, they are in danger of extinction on the Año Nuevo Island.

In 2010, Lynch taught an interdisciplinary ceramics class at California College of the Arts (CCA) in collaboration with Passmore that focused on designing and prototyping ceramic nest modules for the Rhinoceros Auklet. After extensive subsequent design refinement, the class fabricated 90 individual nest modules and installed them on the island. In 2012, they developed and installed thirty nest sites for Ashy Storm Petrels breeding in a several caves on the Channel Islands. In Spring of 2015 Lynch developed initial prototypes with students at CCA for the Cassin's Auklet. Stage two prototypes are being tested for heat mitigation on Año Nuevo Island and the Farallones Islands.(8)