Homocapitalism revolves around Nathan’s personal experiences of identity, sexuality, and late capitalism informed by his unique perspective of being a gay man living in West Texas. Nathan combines traditional metalsmithing and digital art to explore subversion, code-switching, and self-expression methods with a queer lens to question the status quo. His work considers the many cultural and personal similarities between jewelry and the consumer automobile. By transforming small sculptures into wearable jewelry objects, Nathan seeks to connect the modernist development of the automotive industries and the cultural changes of current-day queer life. This period in question takes place after the introduction of personal mass media starting in the mid-1990s.
His work takes visual and cultural references from the nostalgia of the 1960 hot rod American car culture, the financial destruction by the auto unions, and the introduction to system hybridization, all introduced by late capitalism. Jewelry as a medium has many cultural and personal similarities to the consumer automobile. The automobile is a vibrant consumer product that has transitioned between high and low popular cultures since its introduction. The automobile, just like jewelry, ranges from cheap transportation to highly collected works of art that exist in a "third space" of popular culture. The ability of the automobile and jewelry to become elevated into works of art by popular culture makes them so crucial to society.
Homocapitalism is currently on exhibition at the School of Art's Studio and Folio Galleries until May, 14, 2023.
