Mirage

With an unspoiled hemisphere in view it seemed that mankind might actually realize what had been thought a poetic fantasy. Soon the dream of a retreat to an oasis of harmony and joy was removed from its traditional literary context. It was embodied in the various Utopian schemes for making America the site of a new beginning for Western society.

(Leo Marx, The machine in the garden [1964, p. 3])

In his new exhibition Mirage, Nick Doyle presents a new series of work focusing on the great American landscape. The transcendental idea of communing with nature was foundational in America’s idea of itself. As the nation expanded, the image of the land became synonymous both with Manifest Destiny and a utopian ideal of abundant prosperity. Doyle challenges these narratives, subverting them through tongue-in-cheek compositions in his signature material: denim.

Denim functions here not merely as surface but as a conceptual medium—a metaphorical lens through which American history may be reinterpreted. Its invention coincided with the rise of capitalism and industrialization in Europe. Textiles were among the first industries established by settlers in North America, and denim subsequently became embedded in the country’s development as a global superpower. Its presence spans histories of slavery in the South, the conquest of the frontier, and the stratifications of class identity. Denim endures both as a symbol of rugged individualism and as a mirror exposing the imperialist, racist, and capitalist structures underpinning American identity. Employing nostalgic imagery, alongside techniques such as hand-bleaching and acid-washing, Doyle paints a picture of America grappling with a fractured identity.

In Barrier to entry, Doyle appropriates a painting by Albert Bierstadt, positioning it behind a chain-link fence. Bierstadt—associated with the Hudson River School, often regarded as the nation’s first art movement—was frequently commissioned by railroad companies to translate sketches and photographs into monumental canvases that promoted western expansion to tourists and settlers. This idyllic landscape of Corcoran Mountain, California, shifts in and out of focus, as you are confronted by an industrial barrier. Doyle reframes Bierstadt’s vision as a privatized utopia, accessible only through transgression, as though the viewer were trespassing on restricted land.

A similar push and pull is also reflected in Mountain High, in which a snow-covered mountain peak draws you into a trompe-l’oeil rendering of a Coca-Cola vending machine. Here, the possibility of spiritual transcendence is interrupted by the machinery of consumption. This persistent undercurrent of capitalism—of the “sell” or the “con”—courses throughout Doyle’s work. In Losing my ass and the exhibition’s titular Mirage, the focus shifts to Las Vegas, a city emblematic of American capitalism. Built upon a pre-existing natural spring, this supposed oasis offers little respite, serving instead as a metaphor for the broader illusions of American life.

The exhibition also introduces a new material to Doyle’s practice: neon. Once emblematic of modernity and mid-century prosperity, neon signage has become a nostalgic relic of American road culture. In Machine in the garden, Doyle fuses neon with acid-washed denim in a freestanding sculpture of a gasoline pump. Sun-bleached and eroded, the pump resembles a geological remnant—half unearthed from quicksand or desert dunes. In I am death, destroyer of worlds, the Marlboro Man reappears as a faded billboard figure, his lasso and cigarette traced in neon. These assemblages populate a dystopian landscape in which America’s icons decay into spectral reminders of promises unfulfilled.

Time and memory resurface in Twin visions, where two mirrored views of Monument Valley, Arizona, are framed within oversized binocular lenses. The doubling produces a disorienting déjà-vu: a vision of the future that feels already exhausted, as though the West were forever repeating itself.

Through such works, Doyle interrogates the commodification of hope and salvation. The American West, once cast as a land of limitless possibility, appears here as an endless cycle of trinkets and tokens—dreams sold to wanderers on a road to nowhere. Doyle compels us to reconsider the question at the heart of the American project: was it all, in the end, just a mirage?