Nate Lewis explores history through patterns, textures, and rhythm, creating meditations of celebration and lamentations.

« I am interested in the unseen. My work is driven by empathy, and the desire to understand nuanced points of view. By altering photographs, I aim to challenge people’s perspectives on race and history through distortion and illusion. Treating the paper like an organism itself, I sculpt patterns akin to cellular tissue and anatomical elements, allowing hidden histories and patterns to be uncovered from the photographs. I approach subjects and imagery from a diagnostic place with the idea of utilizing diagnostic lenses and contrast dyes. By virtue of my medical training, I am interested in the tensions that exist within and without us. Ultimately, the work embraces humanistic ideas of human connection and understanding. »

About the artist

Nate Lewis (b. 1985, Beaver Falls, PA; lives and works in New York City) is best recognized for his distinctive practice of sculpting paper through incision, texture, and bodily imagery, emerging from an early foundation in music and drawing. His work explores the body as an archive, weaving together visual, cultural, and historical narratives through a unique material language.

He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing from VCU and worked for nine years as a critical‑care nurse in hospitals across the Washington, D.C. area. Lewis began his artistic practice with the violin in 2008, followed by drawing in 2010, gradually developing the sculptural paper techniques that now define his work. He has completed residencies at Pioneer Works, Brooklyn, NY, and Dieu Donné, New York, NY.

His recent projects include exhibitions at major institutions such as the California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY; the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT; 21c Museum Hotels, multiple locations, US; and the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Services, Washington, DC, as part of Men of Change: Power, Triumph, Truth. He has also participated in public talks and lectures at the Yale Center for British Art, Yale University, and Paris Photo, as well as in For Real For Real at the DAAD Artists‑in‑Berlin Program, curated by Claudia Rankine, John Lucas, Russell Salmon, and Mathias Zeiske. Most recently, he took part in AMOCA Dialogues: Black Voices from the Museum Collection at Marble Hall, Temple of Peace, Cardiff, Wales.

His work is held in numerous public and private collections, including the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY; the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA; the Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD; the Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, TX; the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA; the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA; the International African American Museum, Charleston, SC; the Hall Art Foundation, Reading, VT / Derneburg, DE; AMOCA Wales, Cardiff, UK; the Artistic Museum of Contemporary Art, Cardiff, UK; the Middlebury College Museum of Art, Middlebury, VT; the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture, Spokane, WA; the Gund Gallery Collection, Kenyon College, Gambier, OH; the University of Maryland Art Collection, College Park, MD; the Petrucci Family Foundation Collection, Bethlehem, PA; The Bunker Artspace, Palm Beach, FL; The Dean Collection, New York, NY; the Wellin Museum of Art, Hamilton College, Clinton, NY; the Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC; the Yuko Nii Foundation, Brooklyn, NY; and 21c Museum Hotels, multiple locations, US.

Nate Lewis will present his new solo exhibition at Zidoun‑Bossuyt Gallery in Paris in October 2026.