NATHAN
PEARCE

Until 1888, photography was primarily an indoor activity, requiring laborious setups and meticulous chemical processes. But when George Eastman introduced the Kodak camera, a small, portable box with a price accessible to the middle class, the medium proliferated. “Suddenly, photography became unmoored in space,” wrote Clive Thompson in Smithsonian Magazine in 2014. The camera was preloaded with 100 frames, and Kodak took care of developing the film and sending back a reloaded camera. No longer a necessity to sit still for half a minute or go to the portrait studio to have photos made, the snapshot was born.


For Nathan Pearce, the quotidian spirit of this early lens-based perspective rings through black-and-white images he captures around his home in rural Southern Illinois. He prefers to use small cameras, predominantly Leica, to document the people and places comprising what coastal folks regard as flyover country. By also sometimes utilizing his phone or instant film cameras like Instax, he taps into our contemporary age of casual if economical image-making while intentionally reflecting on a sense of place, belonging, and togetherness.


Pearce’s portraits of family and friends, crop fields, and the region’s characteristically long, flat roads, emphasize a tender and affectionate view of his home. “I am typically just living my life in this rural community with a camera and do like to go for a drive every now and then to find a picture,” Pearce says. “I find that the process of making the pictures to be very meditative and is good for my mental health, so I try to do it as often as possible.”


As The Niche celebrates its inaugural show in a new space in addition to its virtual presentations, we welcome Pearce back to Standard Projects where he was one of the first artists in residence nine years ago. This show presents ten photographs from various bodies of work made over the past five years.

.

ABOUT


Nathan Pearce

Nathan Pearce (b. 1986) is an artist based in Southern Illinois. Pearce works in book and zine making and photography, and his publications are held in several artists' book and library collections, including those at MoMA, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Photography, and the Center for Creative Photography. His work has been exhibited at Paris Photo and in solo shows at the PhotoNola festival, Cedarhurst Center for the Arts, Nizhniy Tagil Museum of Fine Arts, and The Rangefinder Gallery in Chicago. He has been published in over 200 books, zines, and exhibition catalogs, as well as online in The Huffington Post, The British Journal of Photography, and Juxtapoz. Find more at nathanpearcephoto.com.



Dovetail | The Niche

Dovetail is a magazine exploring pathways between contemporary visual art and place. Co-founded in 2020 by writer and curator Kate Mothes and artist Vickie Vainionpää, the platform initially launched online and released two print issues before pausing. Mothes took the helm and relaunched in late 2022. The Niche is a virtual space dedicated to special projects and features as a supplement to the magazine, and in 2024, a small gallery of the same name opens at Standard Projects, at the Dovetail office, in Hortonville, Wisconsin. Find more at dovetailmag.com.



Standard Projects

Located in a former police and fire station in the village of Hortonville, Wisconsin, Standard Projects was established in 2014 as a multi-disciplinary creative space, hosting exhibitions, residencies, workshops, and long-term projects. Now housing an eponymous custom picture framing shop and Roll the Dice vintage shop, it is home to Dovetail’s office and gallery space, The Niche. Find more at stndrdprjcts.com.



This exhibition is supported in part by a grant from Arts Midwest.



For press inquiries, please contact Kate Mothes at info@dovetailmag.com.