Executed in 2007 as number three from an edition of four plus two artist proofs, MUDFLAP (WHATEVER) takes one of the more unlikely objects in the American vernacular landscape and transforms it into a vehicle for sly conceptual inquiry. The mudflap, a utilitarian automotive accessory typically emblazoned with corporate branding or pop iconography, is here rendered in rubber and metal and carved with runic script in place of any legible logo. Nathan Mabry frustrates the object's intended communicative function at precisely the moment he amplifies its visual authority, producing something that reads simultaneously as sculpture, sign, and cipher. The result sits in productive tension between the decorative and the inscrutable, inviting sustained looking while resisting easy resolution. Mabry occupies a distinctive position within contemporary American sculpture, synthesizing sources as disparate as pre-Columbian ceramics, the reductive minimalism of Donald Judd and John McCracken, and the imagery of everyday commercial culture with a wit that never tips into mere cleverness. Works from this period demonstrate his consistent interest in what happens when objects are stripped of their expected meaning and reloaded with something far less stable. MUDFLAP (WHATEVER) is a compact and confident example of that practice, its modest dimensions belying the ambition of its conceptual proposition. Mabry's work is held in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Hammer Museum, and the present work offers collectors an opportunity to acquire a signed edition piece from a pivotal moment in his development.