Nasarimba

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Nasarimba, “Charged Room,” 2021

acrylic on canvas, 36″ x 48″ (photo by Kelly Hofer, courtesy of VivianeArt)

The Calgary collective, Nasarimba, an artist duo known for colourful murals and playful interventions in public space, scales down, replacing latex and aerosols with acrylics and airbrush in its debut exhibition of small works at VivianeArt. The shift from public space to the studio in May and June, at the invitation of Viviane Mehr, the Calgary gallery's owner, culminates in a fresh and exploratory body of work that ramps up intricacy, visual textures and spatial ruptures. 

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Nasarimba and Jill Stanton, “Daybreak,” 2020

mural commissioned by the Beltline Urban Murals Project in Calgary (photo by Chelsea Yang)

The duo, Mikhail Miller and Rachel Ziriada, had a spirit of playful mischief in mind when they coined their made-up name in 2015. This latest body of work uses some of the same visual language as their mural, Daybreak. Commissioned for last year’s Beltline Urban Murals Project behind Calgary’s Uptown Bottle Depot, the mural features bright hues, colour gradients, crisp edges, mottled grey areas, perspectival shifts and familiar urban flotsam, like cables, cinder blocks and distressed chain-link fencing.

Daybreak marked a breakthrough for them as it was the first time they introduced recognizable objects into their abstract compositions, done with encouragement from Edmonton artist Jill Stanton, their collaborator on the mural. Miller recalls walking through the inner-city neighbourhood, noticing cracked concrete, excavated sidewalks and discarded construction materials, and realizing they all carried stories.

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Nasarimba, “Red Meander,” 2021

acrylic on canvas, 23″ x 18″ (photo by Kelly Hofer courtesy of VivianeArt)

Nasarimba’s collage aesthetic provides the visual logic for work in the exhibition, on view until Aug. 15. Using cut-paper assemblages as a staging ground, the artists layered textured paper, some spattered, softly airbrushed or gently rainbowed with a progression of glowing colour. They paid close attention as they made paintings based on these compositions, sometimes choosing to include the slim shadow of the paper’s edge to further complicate spatial relationships in the final image. 

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Nasarimba, “Inside Looking Out,” 2021

acrylic on canvas, 36″ x 24″ (photo by Kelly Hofer, courtesy of VivianeArt)

Charged Room, the largest work, can be read as a glossary of techniques and explorations that unfold across the exhibition’s 15 paintings. A visual push-and-pull plays out – flat shapes and patterns coexist with areas that insist on the illusion of depth. A diffuse dappled grey sets the stage for a chroma-rich palette of secondary colours punctuated with pops of yellow, red and a bit of neon. 

Miller, who earned a BFA in print media from the Alberta University of the Arts in 2006, has since completed a printshop internship at the Banff Centre and run the Ministry of Casual Living, a Victoria artist-run centre. Zariada graduated in 2015 from the University of Victoria with a BFA focused on multimedia installation and design. 

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Nasarimba, “Snow Deliquesce No.2,” 2021

acrylic on wood, 24″ x 24″ (photo by Kelly Hofer, courtesy of VivianeArt)

They share admiration for public art by the Berlin collective Klub 7, as well as Calgary artist Ron Moppett’s mosaic mural, THESAMEWAYBETTER/READER. One early project was to construct painted low-relief wood-scrap sculptures that found homes on telephone poles. This exhibition features four refined versions of these sculptures, underscoring the continuity of Nasarimba’s practice: salvaging, stacking and savouring unexpected moments. ■  

Nasarimba (Mikhail Miller and Rachel Ziriada) at VivianeArt in Calgary from July 9 to Aug. 15, 2021.

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