Sean Nash

SEAN NASH (American, b. Memphis, TN, 1980) lives and works in Kansas City, KS. Sean’s vibrant paintings and sculptures involve sensory curiosity, pleasure, and evolving ecological dynamics and relationships. The queer and trans ecological themes present in his work draw on his lived experience and his research into the microbial world. 

He received his MFA in painting and printmaking from Yale University in 2005, and his BFA from UT Knoxville in 2002. Recent solo exhibitions include Andrew Rafacz Gallery (Chicago, IL), Kate Werble Gallery (New York, NY), TOPS Gallery (Memphis, TN), the Volland Foundation (Alma, KS), The Kniznick Gallery (Waltham, MA), Plug Projects (Kansas City, MO), and Black Ball Projects (Brooklyn, NY).

Residencies include Art Omi (forthcoming 2027, Ghent, NY), Faculty Residency, Ox-Bow (Saugatuck, MI), Tallgrass Artist Residency (Matfield Green, KS), the Fermentation Residency at the Foundation for Fermentation Fervor, Sandor Katz (Liberty, TN), and the Vermont Studio Center (Johnson, VT). He has received awards including the 2023 Charlotte Street Fellows Award, and the 2017 Rocket Grant Award for Garden Variety Soda Fountain. Recent group exhibitions include the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art (Overland Park, KS), Dragon Crab Turtle (St. Louis, MO), David Zwirner (New York, NY), Stop-Gap Projects (Columbia, MO), and Spring/Break Art Show (New York, NY). His work has been written about in the Brooklyn Rail, KC Studio magazine, MOLD magazine, and Fermentation.

Nash’s expansive practice has included many collaborative projects and interactions with the public, community groups, other scholars, and interdisciplinary arts-researchers. Many of Sean’s solo exhibitions and projects from 2014-2020 included food fermentation as material, participatory, and gustatory elements of sculptures. Nash’s individual and collaborative writing on art, fermentation, and queer and trans* identity has been published in many scholarly publications, including TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly. His work is included in numerous private and public collections.