Nathan Tanner (b.) Nathan Tanner (b. 1989) is a self-taught artist who works primarily with pointillist techniques to image-dense drawings. His work blends a witty, stand-up sense of humor with darker, creepier undertones, using humor as a way to explore resilience and the uneasy edges of everyday life.

Nathan works with pen, colored pencil, crayon, and highlighters, often in 11 x 14 sketchbooks. He approaches drawing as both image-making and joke-writing, allowing visual punchlines and unsettling details to coexist within the same space.  

Nathan creates work in public settings, most often late at night at Denny’s,“it gets sketchy in there.” Drawing in front of others is a deliberate choice, inspired by his grandfather’s stories of baling hay. Nathan explains that his grandfather chose to bail the area closest to the highway so people could see how skilled he was at his work. For Tanner, making art publicly is an act of confidence, endurance, and connection.