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Global Celebration of the Arts NSU
INDIA: BETWEEN MYTH AND MEMORY
April 28th 2009
Contact Nathan Markham: oceandrums@gmail.com
Five Minutes on the Road to Madurai
Excerpt from The Travel Diaries of Nathan Markham
1. In 1999, I sat with my wife staring at Southern India from an unexpected perch: through a speeding, sweat-stained bus window. We had been traveling for days on a packed government run Temple tour for Hindu pilgrims starting and ending in Chennai, India.
2. I was considering our dawn descent in our creaky old bus from the mountain hill station Kodaikanal, in the Western Ghats of Tamil Nadu, and the dangerous roads that were ahead. I recalled our highway accident two days before, where we collided with another bus and our driver’s rearview mirror was ripped from the bus and shattered on the pavement. We stopped only to collect the mirror – and continued on.
3. Our government bus moaned and shuttered. It was rocking in and out of danger as my window seemed to lean over the unguarded and crumbling drop-offs – I decided to focus on holding my wife’s hand and a far off waterfall careening from a steep cliff.
4. We sat immediately behind our driver. He was a religious, Hindu man, but unlike his daily forehead thumbprint of ash - his forehead this morning was completely covered in white ash, (Which, in my ignorance of his religion, I assumed meant he had said a really big prayer that morning. And after the first five minutes of our ride that day, I had hoped he did.)
5. He was surrounded by the smoke of burning incense. He had shoved it into the now disabled AC vents on his dashboard. There was a deafening screech of a morning chant playing over the loud speakers from his personal cassette deck.
6. The bus door, next to us was open to the road as we drove, and with no seatbelts on, every turn of the bus driver’s wheel was a reason to curse, and to pray. I leaned into the wind. I noticed it becoming an oven. I watched the road whizzing by, a few feet away. The more dry the air became the closer our bus came to the flat scorching desert.
7. As he drove, the driver argued with the bus luggage boy, an 11 year old, about whether or not he could play a Michael Jackson cassette during our descent. The bus was hurling around corners, missing on-coming traffic by inches. I breathed in deeply the remnants of the incense. The smoke was burning my lungs. I remember thinking this man is spiritually prepared to die today, am I? He refused to play the boy’s tape. I was finally enjoying India. I just couldn’t see flying off a mountain blaring a heart-felt rendering of, “Beat It.”
NATHAN MARKHAM - BIO
Nathan Markham was born in Louisville, KY in 1975 and spent his childhood in several small towns in TN, playing music, drawing and writing stories.
From 1999 – 2001, he backpacked with his wife around the world, collecting images, stories, and videos concerning the migration of the King family from Guyana throughout the British Colonies and Dominion. Nathan created several lengthy diaries during this time documenting his daily experiences – and also attempted to have a great time traveling.
Nathan received his Bachelor of Fine Art in Painting and Drawing from Savannah College of Art and Design in 1999, and is an artist and educator. He now resides in South Florida, with his wife of 14 years and their two sons. He is currently showing art inspired by his writings and travels. He has recently completed his Master’s in Interdisciplinary Arts at Nova Southeastern University.
Artist Statement
Nathan Markham makes painted journeys through his past travels, confronting globalization as a loss of individual identity. In these latest works, he engages the memory and symbols of India, not as an ambassador, but as a catalyst for collected and eroding content.
Through the combination of staining and resisting pigments, he
re-contextualizes each layer of his travels. His past understanding informs his unwilling future, and like memory, partly controls the final outcome. His paintings pass through many genres of technique, saving and destroying valuable ideas that are sometimes forever obscured in the past layer. Markham mimics time, as he erodes his depiction of memory and the mythology of his travels. Narratives arise of robberies, illnesses, celebrations and near death experiences.
Markham’s approach to picture making is layered, arrested,
and pragmatic. His paintings are his journey through personal mythology, destroyed memories, and visceral technique.
April 28th 2009
Contact Nathan Markham: oceandrums@gmail.com
Five Minutes on the Road to Madurai
Excerpt from The Travel Diaries of Nathan Markham
1. In 1999, I sat with my wife staring at Southern India from an unexpected perch: through a speeding, sweat-stained bus window. We had been traveling for days on a packed government run Temple tour for Hindu pilgrims starting and ending in Chennai, India.
2. I was considering our dawn descent in our creaky old bus from the mountain hill station Kodaikanal, in the Western Ghats of Tamil Nadu, and the dangerous roads that were ahead. I recalled our highway accident two days before, where we collided with another bus and our driver’s rearview mirror was ripped from the bus and shattered on the pavement. We stopped only to collect the mirror – and continued on.
3. Our government bus moaned and shuttered. It was rocking in and out of danger as my window seemed to lean over the unguarded and crumbling drop-offs – I decided to focus on holding my wife’s hand and a far off waterfall careening from a steep cliff.
4. We sat immediately behind our driver. He was a religious, Hindu man, but unlike his daily forehead thumbprint of ash - his forehead this morning was completely covered in white ash, (Which, in my ignorance of his religion, I assumed meant he had said a really big prayer that morning. And after the first five minutes of our ride that day, I had hoped he did.)
5. He was surrounded by the smoke of burning incense. He had shoved it into the now disabled AC vents on his dashboard. There was a deafening screech of a morning chant playing over the loud speakers from his personal cassette deck.
6. The bus door, next to us was open to the road as we drove, and with no seatbelts on, every turn of the bus driver’s wheel was a reason to curse, and to pray. I leaned into the wind. I noticed it becoming an oven. I watched the road whizzing by, a few feet away. The more dry the air became the closer our bus came to the flat scorching desert.
7. As he drove, the driver argued with the bus luggage boy, an 11 year old, about whether or not he could play a Michael Jackson cassette during our descent. The bus was hurling around corners, missing on-coming traffic by inches. I breathed in deeply the remnants of the incense. The smoke was burning my lungs. I remember thinking this man is spiritually prepared to die today, am I? He refused to play the boy’s tape. I was finally enjoying India. I just couldn’t see flying off a mountain blaring a heart-felt rendering of, “Beat It.”
NATHAN MARKHAM - BIO
Nathan Markham was born in Louisville, KY in 1975 and spent his childhood in several small towns in TN, playing music, drawing and writing stories.
From 1999 – 2001, he backpacked with his wife around the world, collecting images, stories, and videos concerning the migration of the King family from Guyana throughout the British Colonies and Dominion. Nathan created several lengthy diaries during this time documenting his daily experiences – and also attempted to have a great time traveling.
Nathan received his Bachelor of Fine Art in Painting and Drawing from Savannah College of Art and Design in 1999, and is an artist and educator. He now resides in South Florida, with his wife of 14 years and their two sons. He is currently showing art inspired by his writings and travels. He has recently completed his Master’s in Interdisciplinary Arts at Nova Southeastern University.
Artist Statement
Nathan Markham makes painted journeys through his past travels, confronting globalization as a loss of individual identity. In these latest works, he engages the memory and symbols of India, not as an ambassador, but as a catalyst for collected and eroding content.
Through the combination of staining and resisting pigments, he
re-contextualizes each layer of his travels. His past understanding informs his unwilling future, and like memory, partly controls the final outcome. His paintings pass through many genres of technique, saving and destroying valuable ideas that are sometimes forever obscured in the past layer. Markham mimics time, as he erodes his depiction of memory and the mythology of his travels. Narratives arise of robberies, illnesses, celebrations and near death experiences.
Markham’s approach to picture making is layered, arrested,
and pragmatic. His paintings are his journey through personal mythology, destroyed memories, and visceral technique.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Friday, November 28, 2008
Saturday, September 6, 2008
New Works in Progress! 2008
Mixed Media
30" x 30"
Mixed Media
24" x 30"
Mixed Media
16" x 20"
MixedMedia
24" x 30"
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