The Artistic Evolution of Peter Nadin

Born in Bromborough, England, Peter Nadin is a British-born American artist, poet, and farmer. After studying fine art at Newcastle upon Tyne University from 1972 to 1976, he moved to New York, where he worked as a construction worker and collaborated with artist Christopher D’Arcangelo. Together, they established a non-commercial gallery in Nadin’s Tribeca loft at 84 West Broadway. This space hosted artists and musicians who responded to the gallery's conditions, featuring works by figures such as Daniel Buren, Sean Scully, and Dan Graham. Nadin also participated in an artist consulting office collective alongside Jenny Holzer, Richard Prince, Peter Fend, Coleen Fitzgibbon, and Robin Winters.

During the 1980s, Nadin’s principal medium was painting, though he also produced sculpture and published poetry, including the installation Poetry Room. His work from this period focused on the representation of consciousness through painterly marks. He held solo exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston and the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, and showed at the Brooke Alexander Gallery in New York. His career also included participation in the 1988 Venice Biennale.

Art and Agriculture

In 1992, Nadin transitioned from exhibiting art to farming, acquiring Old Field Farm in Cornwallville, New York. Through the 1990s and 2000s, he expanded the farm, which raises pigs, chickens, ducks, cashmere goats, and bees. This venture led to the founding of Old Field Farm/Art & Agriculture. While he ceased exhibiting during this period, Nadin continued to create art influenced by his agricultural work, incorporating materials such as wax from his bees or cashmere from his goats into his paintings.

In 2006, he published the book The First Mark: Unlearning How to Make Art. Following a trip to Cuba in 2006 as a delegate to the South American Beekeepers’ Conference, he was invited to exhibit at the Wifredo Lam Center in Havana. His First Mark exhibition traveled to several Cuban cities, including Pinar Del Río, Matanzas, Holguín, and San Antonio de los Baños, as well as Cuenca, Ecuador. In 2011, Nadin held his first New York exhibition in many years at Gavin Brown’s enterprise in the West Village.