About

Nathan Harding is an intuitive, American artist in New York City who’s known for his vibrant, abstract paintings. He creates art with his guide, Alexander Daniels, through audio and visual communication. His fascination with the visual arts began in Whittier, California as a multiracial child where he’d watch movies being filmed in his neighborhood. As a teenager he wrote and directed character-driven scenes while growing up on 20-acres in Freeland, Washington on Whidbey Island. Andy Warhol, Gus Van Sant, David Lynch, John Waters and Wong Kar-wai inspired him. At 19, while backpacking through Europe, he was mesmerized by Joan Miró’s body of work in Barcelona, Spain.

Later at Chapman University in Orange, California he studied filmmaking with an emphasis on screenwriting and directing. Before graduating, he was hired by talent agency, William Morris, as an agent trainee in Beverly Hills, California. The more Nathan progressed at the agency, the stronger he desired to leave the United States. He quit the agency, went through an identity crisis, and listened to someone’s suggestion to teach English in Japan. In Osaka and Tokyo, he worked as an English instructor and discovered the works of Haruki Murakami and Hayao Miyazaki.

In Tokyo, he found love for the first time and then had his heart broken. This triggered an awakening to move to India where he lived at a Buddhist Burmese Vihara Monastery in Bodh Gaya. Nathan spent most of his days visiting the nearby Bodhi Tree where the Buddha became enlightened. He returned to Southern California and studied Tibetan Buddhism with the late Venerable Geshe Tsultim Gyeltsen at Gaden Shartse Thubten Dhargye Ling in Long Beach while working in nonprofit management.

Again, he felt the need to leave America so he traveled to London, Paris, Amsterdam, Rome, Athens, Cairo and settled in Nepal for a while at the Ganden Yiga Chozin Buddhist Meditation Centre in Pokhara. There he led meditations, read books, and started writing a novel about a young man trying to find his father so he could show him how to tame an imaginary purple elephant living in his mind.

One of his meditation students suggested he move to Bali. So, he caught a flight to Bali and rented a home on a compound ran by a polygamous Balinese family. He continued working on his novel and read chapters at the nearby Ubud Writers & Readers Festival. His novel isn't finished. Nathan didn’t want to continue living in multiple places so he asked a local tarot card reader where he should live. She advised him everything he wanted in life was in New York City.

In 2013, he moved to the historic district in Jackson Height, Queens where he quickly met his future Ecuadorian husband, Jorge. They live in one of the most diverse, multicultural neighborhoods in the world. In their spare time they renovate a 100-year-old home in a northeastern Pennsylvania coal mining town. Since being in New York, Nathan has focused on acting, writing, photography, filmmaking and painting. His life experiences are fundamental to his process as an artist.