The Cornhole series blends Film Noir, street art, and the backyard college game of cornhole into a sophisticated look at contemporary Pop Art Americana. Cult classic film references mixed with a line of text related to the film or the actor depicted invoke humor while addressing life, sports, and performance on a larger stage.
Stencil use is a large element of contemporary American street art and although Nate does not identify as a “Street Artist,” the cornhole board series, “The Art of Cornhole” employs layer upon layer of hand-cut stencils, creating illustrations likened to multi-color screen printing. The street artist uses stencil techniques to get in and out quickly, so as to avoid being caught or arrested as well as to be able to make a relatively complicated illustration exactly the same, multiple times. In contrast to this function Nate’s stencils are painstakingly cut and take a lot of time to produce for a one time use, as they are destroyed in the application process.
The result is an impressive piece of art that looks like a backyard BBQ game. The art is coated in several layers of clear polyurethane so it’s perfectly safe to throw corn bags at it, but I wouldn’t let my sister’s 3 year old climb on it and use the board for a slide. I’m not going to try throwing my house keys through the hole or anything like that. Ultimately these hand painted works are expensive pieces of art to hang on your wall and the irony, for me, is that it looks like a kids game.”