Navin June Norling

My work is connected to both urban and rural sensibilities. It examines classic Americana imagery against an urban backdrop of found materials to confront and comment upon popular culture and its signifiers, sayings, folklore and materialism. I was raised in suburban Northern California but spent summers on my grandfather's farm in California's central valley. My art is infused with the rugged relics of that rural setting. Nothing on the farm ever went to waste; all was recycled and re-used. The idea of finding alternative use in something abandoned and infusing it with these inspirations is an integral part of my work.

I have lived in New York City since the early 1990s. My art is a dynamic dialogue between modern pop-based imagery, urban graffiti inspired color palettes, found objects covered in urban grit and the richness of rural America. The result is an anthology of provocative sculptural objects and paintings that examines the rich American cultural landscape using humor and irony. 

The act of processing city life and all of its textures and colors informs my work. The structures of the city, tattered and strewn with graffiti and urban detritus, begin to tell the viewer of the lives being lived inside the city’s walls. As an urban artist, all that is around me inspires me. I salvage through trash bins to recover materials as varied as windowpanes and wheelchairs. I create work that is made from the remnants of lives once lived and people gone before me.  The images are significant in my personal as well as in our collective American history for their representation of and commentary on issues of power, class, geography, capitalism and inequality.

Collections and Noted Acquisitions

Brooklyn Museum, Art Omi, Virgin Mobile