Excerpts from conversations with myself

Jeff Nachtigall

Fifty panels, each two feet square, stretch across the wall in a grid, like the storyboard for a manic animated film. In one panel boat people jump from a fire red ship into Horseshoe Bay, in another a row of prairie grain elevators bearing the logo "FOOD" trail off into the distance, while in another a colouring book bear dances in a dismal cartoon forest.

Regina artist Jeff Nachtigall describes his most recent installation, Excerpts from conversations with myself, as "ninety days of what influences me, grabs my attention." Nachtigall's raw material is the endless reel of images, which bombard us daily.

Taken as a whole, Excerpts from conversations with myself adds up to a coast-to-coast epic feature which takes the viewer from pop culture shallows to inner life depths along the way.

Jeff Helmut Nachtigall was born in Yorkton, Saskatchewan in 1970. He earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Regina in 1993 where he studied printmaking and sculpture with Jack Cowin and Victor Cicansky. After one year in the Master of Fine Arts program at Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois, Nachtigall moved to Calgary where he began to paint on salvaged material and explore an automatic, intuitive style.

Nachtigall’s solo exhibitions include Folker-99, Susan Whitney Gallery, Regina (1999); Cinnamon, Newzones Gallery of Contemporary Art, Calgary (1999); and Cannon Fodder, Susan Whitney Gallery, (1996). His work has been included in a number of recent group exhibitions, including: Canada Survey: Prairies, Douglas Udell Gallery, Vancouver (2000); Re-imaging the Prairie Icon, The Littel Gallery, Prince Albert, SK (2000); Strangers in a Strange Land, Rosemont Art Gallery, Regina (2000), Burn Graceland Burn, Art Gallery of Calgary, Calgary (2000); Introductions 98, Newzones Gallery of Contemporary Art (1998); Uncommon, Clark Gallery, Lincoln, Massachusetts (1998); and Tradition Transformed, Calgary the Urban Landscape, Triangle Gallery of Visual Arts, Calgary (1997).

Curated by Timothy Long. Organized by the MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina, with the support of the Saskatchewan Arts Board and the Canada Council for the Arts and the Museum Assistance Program of the Department of Canadian Heritage.

Jeff Nachtigall, Excerpts from conversations with myself, installation view, 2001.