Jamie Nares on Creating Space for Fluidity in Life and Work

For the past five decades, the British-born, New York–based artist Jamie Nares has been capturing the passage of time, the physics of motion, and the essence of self through a wide variety of mediums, including film, painting, music, photography, and performance. Many of Nares’s films, such as Pendulum (1976) and Street (2011), play with rhythm and speed as they distill the streets of New York City and the movements of its inhabitants. Nares’s vast body of work shares a common theme: the recording of a specific moment in time that gives the viewer an intimate look into a human experience. Her famous brushstroke paintings are both powerful and delicate, capturing the mere seconds of a single, continuous bodily motion using a repeated swooping gesture. One of her recent projects, “Monuments,” pays homage to the workmen who, centuries ago, chiseled marks in the huge granite blocks of downtown Manhattan. As life speeds up following the pandemic lockdowns of 2020 and 2021, Nares’s work serves as a beautiful reminder to slow down, and to more deeply explore the many movements around us.

On this episode of Time Sensitive, Nares talks with Andrew about her decades of work exploring time, rhythm, and movement; her journey transitioning to womanhood at age 65; and why her daughters and the next generation give her hope for the future.

Special thanks to our Season 6 sponsor, L’ÉCOLE, School of Jewelry Arts.

Show notes:

• Full transcript
• Jamie Nares
• Kasmin Gallery
• [03:32] Street
• [15:43] Pendulum
• [25:26] Red-Handed
• [27:29] A New Vein
• [31:10] James Chance and the Contortions
• [38:18] Ramp
• [38:36] No Wave Cinema
• [39:21] Monuments
• [50:02] “Nares: Moves”