Nabilah Nordin (b. 1991) is a Singaporean-Australian artist based in New York. Working within the traditions of abstract sculpture, her project centres on upending the categories through which objects are read, collapsing the distinctions between the ancient and the industrial, the organic and the artificial, the precious and the profane. Using a wide range of materials, including welded steel, beeswax, epoxy resin and bronze, she is recognised for her towering, toppling sculptures that sit somewhere between the poise of a monument and an absurdist, slapstick invention. Through these works, she explores artifice, material hierarchies, the compression of historical time and the fetishisation of a surface 'finish'. Her process-driven approach often pushes form and material into riotous, theatrical territory, where she constructs a Dionysian universe of excess.
Her sculptures are typically composed from several contrasting elements, some in harmony and others in open opposition, so that associations blur and the work refuses to settle into a single category or moment in time. Her visual vocabulary draws as much on art history as on everyday spectacle: melted birthday candles, shimmering eyeshadow, birds of paradise and hot-rod cars. She begins each sculpture by bending and welding steel rods, building her armatures gesture by gesture and often leaving seams, makeshift scaffolds and supports exposed, so that the pursuit of a flawless finish is undercut by evidence of the work's own making. Her surfaces are subjected to an expansive range of treatments, from 17th-century faux-marble plaster and ancient lime-clay techniques to automotive spray, oxidising rust paint and bronze casting. Applied to her contorted forms, these methods produce contradictory visual logics, such as knotted marble or convulsing cement. Nordin persistently undermines the expectations of her chosen mediums, unsettling the values associated with them. Though her sculptures may first evoke fixed associations, such as weathered artefacts, complex machinery, or lyrical scriptures, these readings unravel upon closer inspection. By resisting familiar references, the works demand a visceral engagement rooted in sensation, presence, and material vitality.
Nordin has exhibited at museums, biennales and galleries across Australia, Asia and the USA. Recent solo exhibitions and presentations include island, New York; Parrasch Heijnen, Los Angeles; Australian Embassy, Washington DC; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Singapore Biennale; Changwon Sculpture Biennale, South Korea; Neon Parc, Melbourne; and Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne. Her work has been included in group exhibitions including Ryan Lee, New York; Parrasch Heijnen, Los Angeles; La Loma, Los Angeles; The Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne; Bundanon Art Museum, Illaroo; Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne; RISING, Melbourne; Murray Art Museum Albury, Albury. Nordin’s work is held in public collections including the Art Gallery of New South Wales; Monash University Museum of Art; Artbank; National Gallery of Victoria; and the MIIA Collection.
island, New York
Neon Parc, Art Basel Hong Kong
Neon Parc, Melbourne
Parrasch Heijnen, Los Angeles
Embassy of Australia, Washington DC
The National 4: Australian Art Now, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Neon Parc, Art Cologne
Neon Parc, Melbourne
Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne
Missing Persons, Melbourne
COMA Gallery, Sydney
Changwon Sculpture Biennale, Changwon
Singapore Biennale, Singapore
Ryan Lee, New York
La Loma x Vielmetter, Los Angeles
The Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne
Make Room x Meeting Point, Los Angeles
Carl Larsson x Invisible Dynamics, Los Angeles
Megan Mulrooney, Aspen
RISING, Melbourne and Brisbane Powerhouse
La Loma, Los Angeles
National Art School, Sydney
Futures Gallery, Melbourne
Parrasch Heijnen, Miami Beach
Parrasch Heijnen, Los Angeles
COMA Gallery, Sydney
Bundanon Art Museum, Illaroo
4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney
Canberra Art Biennial, Canberra
McClelland Sculpture Park+Gallery, Melbourne
Fiona and Sidney Myer Gallery, Melbourne
RISING, Melbourne
Murray Art Museum Albury, Albury
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne
Yavuz Gallery, Sydney
LON Gallery, Melbourne
Neon Parc, Melbourne
The Commercial, Sydney
with Nick Modrzewski, Firstdraft, Sydney
Bundoora Homestead Art Centre, Melbourne
Artbank, Sydney
Blindside, Melbourne
Institute of Contemporary Arts, Singapore
Her sculptures are typically composed from several contrasting elements, some in harmony and others in open opposition, so that associations blur and the work refuses to settle into a single category or moment in time. Her visual vocabulary draws as much on art history as on everyday spectacle: melted birthday candles, shimmering eyeshadow, birds of paradise and hot-rod cars. She begins each sculpture by bending and welding steel rods, building her armatures gesture by gesture and often leaving seams, makeshift scaffolds and supports exposed, so that the pursuit of a flawless finish is undercut by evidence of the work's own making. Her surfaces are subjected to an expansive range of treatments, from 17th-century faux-marble plaster and ancient lime-clay techniques to automotive spray, oxidising rust paint and bronze casting. Applied to her contorted forms, these methods produce contradictory visual logics, such as knotted marble or convulsing cement. Nordin persistently undermines the expectations of her chosen mediums, unsettling the values associated with them. Though her sculptures may first evoke fixed associations, such as weathered artefacts, complex machinery, or lyrical scriptures, these readings unravel upon closer inspection. By resisting familiar references, the works demand a visceral engagement rooted in sensation, presence, and material vitality.
Nordin has exhibited at museums, biennales and galleries across Australia, Asia and the USA. Recent solo exhibitions and presentations include island, New York; Parrasch Heijnen, Los Angeles; Australian Embassy, Washington DC; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Singapore Biennale; Changwon Sculpture Biennale, South Korea; Neon Parc, Melbourne; and Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne. Her work has been included in group exhibitions including Ryan Lee, New York; Parrasch Heijnen, Los Angeles; La Loma, Los Angeles; The Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne; Bundanon Art Museum, Illaroo; Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne; RISING, Melbourne; Murray Art Museum Albury, Albury. Nordin’s work is held in public collections including the Art Gallery of New South Wales; Monash University Museum of Art; Artbank; National Gallery of Victoria; and the MIIA Collection.
New York
through Sculpture
Rizzoli
Thames & Hudson
Catalogue essay, A thousand different angles, McClelland Sculpture Park + Gallery
To Be Magazine, Issue 1
Art Collector, Issue 95
Art & Australia