The work of Nathan Coley (b. 1967, Glasgow, UK) explores discrepancies existing within the built world of architecture and the city as it is actually experienced. He is interested in the idea of “public” space, and his practice explores the ways in which architecture becomes invested with meaning. Across a range of media, Coley investigates what the built environment reveals about the people it surrounds and how the social and individual response to it is culturally conditioned. Using the readymade as a means to take something from the world and then re-place it, he addresses the ritual forms we use to articulate our beliefs. By turning something specific into something general, Nathan Coley tests its function as a form of social representation.
