Nick Drnaso Ghost Works

Press Release

Opening Reception: Thursday, September 11, 6-8pm

Corbett vs. Dempsey is excited to present Nick Drnaso, Ghost Works. This is Drnaso’s first gallery exhibition.

Based in Chicago, Nick Drnaso is best known as a graphic novelist. He has just finished work on his fourth book, which, like the other three, will be published on the illustrious Drawn and Quarterly press. Drnaso’s second book, Sabrina (2018), is the only graphic novel to have been nominated for a Man Booker Prize; his first offering was awarded the Los Angeles Times prize for Best Graphic Novel. Parallel to and intersecting with his graphic novel work, Drnaso maintains an active painting practice. Using back-painting on glass and plexiglass, a technique he has in common with several Chicago Imagist artists, Drnaso has created a series of portraits, highly graphic and also deeply enigmatic, often in a shadow-box format. His most recent series, which will be shown complete in this exhibition, features figureless environments, haunted suburban and urban landscapes with ghostly skies, sometimes surrounded by glyph-like borders. Like his novels, Drnaso’s paintings beg more questions than they answer, their characters and situations as mysterious as they are beautifully and meticulously rendered.