Pictured: "Strength in Numbers" by Nathan Wilson. Photo by: Art Center Sarasota

Sarasota welcomes the latest addition to the gallery scene with tonight’s opening of Galerie Dankneiss, the latest creation from artist and sculptor Nathan Wilson, nestled deep within the Towles Court Artist Colony. A graduate of New College, where he studied mathematics, physics and sculpture, bringing them all together for his artistic endeavours, Wilson places a premium on interdisciplinary understanding and that’s what he hopes to bring to Towles Court with an opening show including sculpture, printmaking, photography and painting.

“It’s bringing things together the way that I know how,” said Wilson, looking every bit the artist – heavily bearded with multi-colored hair perched in a messy topknot and a shirt he gave up buttoning halfway through. “I have an eye for other people who have that interdisciplinary perspective and use that to generate one-of-a-kind art.”

Wilson’s own art, a series of highly geometric sculptures such as a truncated octahedron dubbed “Strength in Numbers,” is a result of his own interdisciplinary interests, as well as a year spent working manual labor in Thailand, making bricks and working construction. “It really put me in touch with the factors of production in a way that I’d never had in the West,” said Wilson. “Reducing my process to a basic one refocused my energies.” Returning to New College, Wilson discontinued his economic studies in exchange for physics and math. Today his speech is peppered with references to Platonic forms, Archimedean solids and the work of Buckminster Fuller, a syngetics pioneer Wilson calls “one of the greatest.”

“It’s an incredible field to have as an artistic influence because the science is continually progressing,” said Wilson, who monitors the latest developments through academic journals and continued research. “What I’m trying to take to people as an artist are these scientific ideas and information that are controlled and understood by a very select few.”

Joining Wilson's work for the opening show will be paintings from local artists Paige Rawitz and Isabelle DuVall, also New College grads, as well as prints from the New York-based graphic artist Aodhan Cummings, with whom Wilson retains a working relationship from his time in New York. Michael Miller, photographer, also joins the bunch. The mix may seem eclectic on paper, but it’s precisely in the curation that Wilson plans to work his magic. “It’s going to be a cohesive experience,” he promises. “They become part of a collection.” And this appears to be the point of Galerie Dankneiss - to create not just an exhibit, but to craft a singular work of art from many, to draw on the strengths of their differences.

“People who are pushing multiple disciplines at the same time are always going to yield a more dynamic gallery space,” said Wilson. He throws his arms wide, imitating the various disciplines spreading to the wind, before bringing them back together. “It’s time to start tying those individual disciplines together and making new directions.”

Galerie Dankneiss, located at 253 S. Links Avenue, Sarasota, opens tonight with a show from 5pm-9pm for the Towles Court Art Walk.

Pictured: "Strength in Numbers" by Nathan Wilson. Photo by: Art Center Sarasota