Nicolas Nobili

Using lumber he collected from Outer Cape beaches, Nobili created this simplified remembrance of his family’s beach house on the dunes of Eastham. His father designed and built the house with a light footprint, knowing that its time would be short-lived. It was simple living–if you needed something to do, the beach was your playground. While the house didn’t last, the memories from his family’s time there profoundly shaped Nobili’s art and his process.

Nobili frequents Outer Cape beaches with an eye for collecting washed up, weathered materials he could use. He doesn’t intentionally search for something but rather collects what he deems interesting and adds these to his resource piles. Without an inside workspace, these piles and his yard are effectively his studio. When the idea of a piece comes to mind, he is able to survey what he has available at hand and use it to shape the eventual construction of a piece.

Chaise Shark
Reworked 2018 | Broken chaise lounge, walkway planks, dock float boards

I found this broken side of a homemade chaise lounge floating/flopping in the tide line on Cape Cod Bay in Wellfleet. As it bobbed and flopped around in the little waves it looked like a shark/fins to me. With the title I liked the contrast of somebody relaxing on a chaise at the beach and the fear/horror of a shark in the water.