The Alchemist's Mainframe

Nicholai Shaver creates an installation portraying the imagined interior of a contemporary alchemist’s studio in The Alchemist’s Mainframe. In the Middle Ages, alchemy was a “science” that sought to create objects that had magical properties—more an art than a science, alchemy brings mystery into the everyday, a quality which the artist feels needs to be constantly and consciously created in our modern era.

• Artist: Nicholai Shaver
• Materials: Bottles, Tools, Miscellaneous Items
• Installation: March 11 – June 14, 2015

About the Artist: Nicholai Shaver is an Indianapolis artist that specializes in assemblage sculpture and in paintings on wooden panels. From a childhood filled with drawing, he learned metalworking and then attended the Herron School of Art where he branched out into book art, photography, and painting. He had access to an abundance of wood surfaces, whose grain and natural knots enabled him to highlight its natural characteristics in his painting.

Since then Shaver has evolved from a painter into an assemblage sculptor, making complex wood constructions which he carefully hand-paints. He is strongly influenced by the Surrealists’ perspective systems and their use of symbolic objects. Much like them, Shaver strives to bring a sense of mystery and symbolic allure to his current installation.