Bio

 

Rupert Nesbitt graduated from The Cooper Union with a BFA in 1991 and received his MFA from Vermont College in 2007. In the early 1990’s his work involved documenting the performative and exploratory practice of climbing New York City’s numerous bridges. That roving sensibility resulted in extensive international travel in the developing world. This included nine summers spent in Egypt as an illustrator on archaeological digs. That experience resulted in illustration work in the field of toy design, ultimately resulting in multiple trips to Hong Kong and China as a designer and animator of robotic toys. During this time, Nesbitt co-founded a public art organization in Newport, Rhode Island and produced, currated and participated in numerous temporary outdoor exhibitions. Currently his practice interrogates issues of power and representation through the medium of digital animation.

 

 

Statement

 

Egypt, 1994:  The Shrine, The Earthquake, The Picnic.

 

While working as an archeological illustrator I often drew outdoors in the vicinity of a 35 foot tall monolithic shrine, the largest in Egypt. It resembles a 35 foot tall, door-less granite refrigerator. It also provides just the right bounced ambient light for my work. It’s a humbling context for my ephemeral projects and its mass contrasts the tiny, meticulous work I undertake in its shadow.

 

Aware of my regular time with the structure, the dig director referred a concerned question from the Egyptian Antiquities Organization: “Had the structure shifted in a recent earthquake?” The shrine already survived an attempt to destroy it in the Middle Ages and is riven with fissures. Its roof functions as an unstable keystone holding the whole together.

 

I perused the research on earlier accounts of the site and found photos that would be useful to compare to the pattern of contemporary cracks. I also took the question as an excuse to make the difficult and forbidden climb up the pedestal and into the shrine.

 

As I hoisted myself over the final ledge and stood inside, I instantly knew the shrine had shifted. I had read that a group of early travelers made the climb and “enjoyed a pleasant afternoon picnic inside.” Standing in that identical spot, I wanted nothing more than to flee back down the rockface because the cracked blocks around me appeared so palpably unstable, I envisioned their immanent collapse at any moment. I wouldn’t dream of having a picnic inside in the current state, it was unnerving for even a few moments. My mind didn’t consciously identify a particular gap as a source of instability but apparently it “read” its surroundings and arrived at a visceral response to the environment. Sure enough, later comparison of photographs confirmed that the stones had indeed shifted.

 

I have an attraction to these little physical details, things as mundane as fissures in rock. My practice researches, tracks, emulates and intervenes in these micro forces. I pursue them with a fascination of how they can actually drive ones interactions with the world, decisions to have a picnic or to flee.  Minutiae with an insidious power- to the extent they stay just at the threshold of awareness. Like a few cracks disturbing ones comfort, manipulating these details can trigger ripples across culture out of all proportion to their scale.

 

 

 

Blog

http://rupertnesbitt.blogspot.com/

 

 

Contact

rupertnesbitt@att.net