Nayland W. Blake is an influential artist whose mixed-media work has been described as disturbing, provocative, elusive, tormented, sinister, hysterical, brutal and tender.

His work is included in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum, The Studio Museum of Harlem, LA MoCa, The Museum of Fine Arts Boston, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the DeYoung Museum, among others. He has exhibited throughout the United States and Europe.

Nayland’s work embraces a host of media, including sculpture, drawing, painting, assemblage, video and performance, and reflects his preoccupation with his biracial heritage and sexual identities. Interracial desire, same-sex love, racial & sexual bigotry, and the body are all recurrent themes of his increasingly influential art.

Among his most famous pieces are Feeder 2, a log cabin made of gingerbread squares fitted to a steel frame; Starting Over, a video of the artist dancing with taps on his shoes in a bunny suit made to weigh the same as his lover, Philip Horvitz; and Gorge, (pictured on the left) a video of the artist sitting shirtless being hand fed an enormous amount of food for an hour by a shirtless black man from behind.

“If you get to experience being in the midst of the moment of creation, of exceeding what you thought was possible for yourself, you’ve already won. That is what we should be in the game for. That’s what’s really at stake in the life of an artist.”— Nayland Blake

As a writer, Nayland’s work has appeared in Interview Magazine, Artforum, Out and OutLook. He is also the author of numerous catalog essays. He is currently Chair of the ICP/Bard Masters program in Advanced Photographic Studies at the International Center of Photography and his work is represented by Matthew Marks Gallery in New York, Fred in London and Gallery Paule Anglim in San Francisco.

Nayland is available as an visiting artist or artist in residence for art departments. He also offers a number of lectures for queer studies, fine art, photography and performing art students.