In 2014 Nathan Eastwood’s showing of his painting ‘Nico’s café’ won him, the ‘East London Painting prize’ (augural winner) and as part of the award, he went on to enjoy his first major solo exhibition at the Nunnery Gallery and was awarded a generous financial sum of money.
Eastwood is well-known for his photo-based, oil paintings that examines themes of identity and class while celebrating ordinary people. He has been obsessed with class since he was a young man working as a silver service waiter in an officers Mess. It’s this obsession that has driven him to record and paint ordinary people getting on with mundane existence. He believes that his paintings are a democratic approach to representing the ordinary person; in his words “this is my contribution to the contemporary political discourse”
Painted on primed gesso panels, these glossy, meticulously detailed paintings has its origin in snapshot digital photographs taken with his camera phone - a man reading the newspaper in a café, a woman reading a book at the train station, or a group of people lining up for free meals, or folk washing their smalls in a launderette. The people in the paintings imply a narrative arc, a conversation inherent, similar to a cutaway scene from a kitchen sink TV show, or film, and as the viewer we want to ask, is she, or he a musician, a writer, taxi driver, what life stories do they have, what music do they enjoy?
Eastwood has stated that, “I am looking to capture life lived - that Ultimately, I am looking to make a contemporary Kitchen Sink Realist painting; one which has its visual roots in photorealism and the conceptual premise of the Social Realist aesthetics. I have coined this term Kitchen Sink Realism as Creative Repetition.’’
Nathan Eastwood was born in 1972 in Barrow-in-Furness, UK.
He lives and works in Rochester, Kent, UK.
Education
MA Fine Art, Byam Shaw School of Art, (CSM), London, 2008-09
First Class BA Hons, Fine Art, Kent Institute of Art and Design, Canterbury, Kent 2001 - 05
Solo Exhibitions
2017 My England, Sid Motion Gallery, London
2016 Laptop and Chips, SE9 Container Gallery, London
2014 Work/Recreation/Freedom, Nunnery Gallery, London
2014 Domestic Realism, (CBP) Crypt St Marylebone Church, London
Group Exhibitions
2024 Slow Painting (by CBP) The Plough Arts Centre, North Devon, UK
2024 Assembly (by CBP) The Old Gym, Rye Creative Centre, Kent, UK
2023 'X - Contemporary British Painting' Newcastle Contemporary Art, Newcastle, UK
2022 Vitalistic Fantasies, Elysium Gallery, Swansea, UK
2022 'Paradoxes' Contemporary British Painting, Quay Arts, Newport, Isle of Wight
2020 Yes/No: 32 Painters (virtual open studio), Contemporary British Painting, curated by Deb Covell, Paula MacArthur, and Judith Tucker.
2020 Me, Myself and I, Collyer Bristow Gallery, London, UK, curated by Rosalind Davis
2019 Contemporary British Painting, Norwich Cathedral, UK
2019 Made in Britain: 82 Painters of the 21st Century, the National Museum in Gdansk, Poland
curated by Robert Priseman, Anna McNay, Malgorzata Taraszkiewicz-Zwolicka and Malgorzata Ruszkowska-Macur
2018 New Painting: Contemporary British Painting, Marylebone Church Cyrpt, London
2017 The Long Count, Von Goetz Art, London
2017 Contemporary Masters from Britain, China: Yantai Art Museum; Artall Gallery & Jiangsu Art Gallery, Nanjing; Tianjin Academy of Fine Art
2017 Contemporary Masters form East of England, 36 works, The Cut, Halesworth, Suffolk
2017 Silence Un-scene, Arthouse Lewisham, London
2016 Aviary, Transition Gallery, London
2016 Selected Works from the Seabrook Collection, The Minories, Colchester, UK
2015 London Painting Survey, Blackhorse Lane, Studios, London
2015 Anti-Social Realism, Charlie Smith Gallery, London
2015 Documentary Realism: Painting in the Digital Age, The Crypt at St Marylebone, London
2015 Present Tense: The Swindon Collection, Swindon Museum and Art Gallery, UK
2014 Contemporary British Painting, the Crypt at St Marylebone, London
2014 @PaintBritain, Ipswich Museum, UK
2014 Priseman-Seabrook Collection, Huddersfield Art Gallery, UK
2014 Towards a New Socio-painting, Transition Gallery, London, UK
2014 The East London Painting Prize, Nunnery Gallery, London (the Inaugural winner)
2014 Signal Over Noise / Don't Split the Focus, Walthamstov, E17, London
2014 This Year's Model, Studio 1.1, Shoreditch, London, E2,
2013 Contemporary British Painting, the Crypt at St Marylebone, London
2013 Zwitgeist Arts Project, ASC Studios, London
2013 Threadneedle Prize (finalist), Mall Galleries, London
2013 Royal Academy Summer Show, Royal Academy of Arts, London
2012 The John Moores Painting Prize (finalist), Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, UK
2012 Occupied Realism, Portman Gallery, London
2011 Platform C's Emergent Art Show, Vyner Street Gallery, Vyner Street, London
Collections
Anita Zabludowicz, London
Goldhill Family, London
The Priseman-Sea Brook Collection
Yale Centre of British Art
Swindon Museum and Art Gallery
Awards
2021 Priseman Seabrook Prize - Inaugural winner
2014 East London Painting Prize - inaugural winner
2013 The Threadneedle Prize - shortlisted
2012 John Moores Painting Prize - shortlisted
2008 South Square Trust Scholarship (Masters Scholarship)
2005 Outstanding Achievement in BA Fine Art (HONS)
PUBLICATIONS AND PRESS
2024 David Sullivan Interviews Nathan Eastwood, Priseman Seabrook Collection
2023 X – Contemporary British Painting, Anniversary Exhibition catalogue, ISBN 9781739781835
2022 Vitalistic Fantasies at Elysium Gallery, Elysium Gallery, Swansea (on-line catalogue)
2022 Paradoxes: 52 Painters, Quay Arts, Isle of Wight
2019 Contemporary British Painting: An Exhibition of 34 Painters, Norwich Cathedral, UK (on-line catalogue)
2019 Made in Britain, Exhibition catalogue, National Museum, Gdansk, Poland, ISBN 9788363185909
2018 New Painting: Contemporary British Painting, (on-line catalogue)
2018 The Anomie Review of Contemporary British Painting, Edited by Matt Price, Anomie, ISBN 9781910221167
2017 Contemporary Masters from the East of England, Priseman-Seabrook Collection: Exhibition catalogue
2017 The Yantai Art Museum, Contemporary Masters from Britain…
2017 Young Artist to Watch - Nathan Eastwood, By Ben Austin, FAD Magazine
2017 My England, Exhibition Press, Sid Motion Gallery
2015 Contemporary Art’s Hottest Talent, The Angel resident magazine, January 2015, Issue 28
2015 Documentary Realism: Painting in the Digital Age, Robert Priseman
2015 The Angel resident magazine
2015 Nathan Eastwood: A Quiet Revolution, Essey by Robert Priseman, 2015
2014 Contemporary Art’s Hottest Talent, Written by Mark Kebble, The Resident
2014 Work/Recreation/Freedom, The Nunnery, exhibition catalogue
2014 Painting the People, Written by Alex Michon (Garageland Reviews)
2014 Priseman-Seabrook Collection of 21st Century British Painting, ISBN 1514186772
2014 Domestic Realism, Garageland 17: Society, Transition Gallery, London (UK)
2014 East London Painting Prize, Exhibition catalogue
2012 John Moores Painting Prize 2012, Exhibition catalogue, National Museums Liverpool, ISBN 9781902700465