Toy Bin Art Presents Nathaniel C. Praska by curator Grace Kim at Tryst Art Fair Los Angeles(Torrance), CA - Toy Bin Art is pleased to present new sculptural works by Nathaniel C. Praska at this year’s Tryst International Art Fair in Torrance. Now in his third year with Tryst and second with Toy Bin Art, Praska continues his investigation into the discarded Materials and uneasy symbols of American working-class life. These three recent sculptures extend his long-standing interest in the worn, the broken, and the forgotten objects shaped by labor, damage, and quiet neglect. Praska’s materials come from the streets and industrial areas of urban Oregon, where discarded machinery, cracked plastics, and rusting tools accumulate in alleyways, vacant lots, and overlooked corners of the city. His sculptures, a yellow turbocharger, a blue yard fire burning used motor oil and plastic, and a shattered row of purple teeth, carry the distinct weight of these environments. They feel weathered, scorched, and exhausted, reminders of the lives and labor hat once moved through the city’s working landscape. These works reflect the quiet strain of survival in a post-industrial America where promises have collapsed but effort remains. Praska’s signature beeswax-oil surfaces recall the residue of heat and wear; his palette—caustic yellows, harsh blues, synthetic purples, suggests petrochemical runoff, industrial grime, and the artificial shine of consumer packaging. Within these harsh forms, a flicker of dry humor and familiar absurdity persists, a hallmark of Praska’s work: what remains when hopes fade but life goes on. This exhibition marks a focused moment in Praska’s practice, a sculptural reflection on labor, ruin, and persistence shaped by the city’s forgotten edges. Nathaniel C. Praska (b. 1985, Portland, Oregon) works primarily in painting and sculpture. His layered surfaces—built up over time—convey an unfiltered immediacy, evoking the raw, overwritten quality of graffiti found on the sides of industrial warehouses: sites of continuous marking and erasure. His subject matter—garbage fires, gas cans, broken teeth, and abandoned places—morphs into enigmatic symbols that conjure anxiety, absurdity, isolation, and paranoia. Praska positions these images alongside monstrous analogies, constructing a visual language that reflects societal despondency and the instability of the post-1980s U.S. socio-economic paradigm. Praska’s work has been exhibited at the Rose Center for the Arts Forsberg Gallery at Lower Columbia College (Longview, Washington); Cerritos College Art Gallery (Norwalk, California); and the Mestizo Institute of Culture and Arts (Salt Lake City, Utah). He has received grants and residencies from the GLEAN Artist Residency Program (2023), Oregon Arts Commission (2023), Regional Arts and Culture Council (2022, 2023), Rockland Woods (2021), and The Calligram Foundation (2012). His work has been included in exhibitions across the United States. Praska lives and works in Portland, Oregon, with his wife and their two children. Tryst Art Fair Details Artist: Nathaniel C.Praska https://www.nathanielcpraska.com/ Dates: July 11-13, 2025 Opening hours: Friday,July 11, 4-6PM, Sat.12th & Sun.13th, 12 -6PM Location: Del Amo Crossing, 21515 Hawthorne Blvd, Torrance (3rd floor space 7) Curator: Grace Kim I https://toybinart.com/ @curatorgraceykim @toybinart