SEA CHANGE officially opens

Please join me in celebrating a new exhibit at Sullivan Goss in Santa Barbara. It’s been 5 years since my last solo show and I’m returning to the subject of a perpetual obsession, the pacific ocean. After the many months pummeled by news of the world and forced seclusion, I offer you color and vast horizons.

The First Thursday reception has been cancelled for August but don’t let that stop you from the respite that the show can offer, a traveling armchair, a breeze blowing onshore, sunshine radiating from the work.

A catalog for the show is also in the works, look for it mid month.

With hopes of seeing you around the gallery, be well, stay safe and let joy find you outside in the sun.

Gallery walls, Sullivan Goss, Santa Barbara

CATALOG EXCERPT:

SEA CHANGE: a profound or notable transformation, substantial change in perspective, transformation after undergoing various trials or tragedies. 

This body of work emerged after the long months of quarantine. We can all agree that the year 2020 altered the way we see and experience the world, a noticeable change in our work patterns, change in our socializations, change in emotional atmosphere.  

During the long seclusion I spent my time combing through old source material for inspiration. Reexamining photographs, I tried to recall the “aha” moment that captured my attention. Looking more closely at these images I was reminded how much information the camera records verses what our eyes are capable of seeing. I question how this influences my work in the studio, the actual verses the recorded, the recorded verses the perceived, all woven into the personal dialog with my materials.

This work represents healing in the making of marks, solace also comes to mind and growth after a long winter. The uncertainty of this past year is veiled as horizons beckon us forward, the passing clouds offer comfort and respite that the storm is moving on, leaving the glorious remains of being washed clean and full of hope.

SEA CHANGE catalog coming soon!

BLOOM at Sullivan Goss

BLOOM will be part of SEA CHANGE opening a week from today at Sullivan Goss. Hope to see you all around the gallery.

Ode to the Pacific

I’m in the final stretch of creating a new show for Sullivan Goss that will open at the end of July. The weeks are ticking away.

I fell in love with the color charts I was making last year and it has influenced the new paintings. I was looking for light and joy in the confines of the quarantine.

Summer Salon at Sullivan Goss

I love to be hanging with friends and beloved colleagues.

Coastal Fog can be viewed now at Sullivan Goss through July 26, 2021 beside the works of John Nava, Nathan Huff, Patricia Chidlaw, Phoebe Brunner, Angela Perko, Colin Campbell Cooper, Lockwood DeForest and many more.

Left to right, Nathan Huff “A Sudden Lurch to Help”, Angela Perko “Refugio Beach, West End #2”, Nicole Strasburg “Coastal Fog” and John Nava “Summerland 4-2”.

Bio/MASS: Contemporary Meditations on Nature at the Wildling Museum

Thank you to Caleb Wiseblood for the wonderful article in the Santa Maria Sun this morning.

READ all about the new exhibition at the Wildling Museum of Art & Nature. Exhibition includes artists Scott Chatenever, Dorothy Churchill-Johnson, Catherine Eaton-Skinner, Lynn Hanson, Karen Kitchel, Maria Rendon, John Robertson, Sommer Roman, Carol Saidon, and Nicole Strasburg.

Springtime at the Wildling Museum of Art & Nature

Spring time means new beginnings. A new iteration of the Fox Tales windows arrives at the museum before the re-opening in April. The Wildling opened their doors again April 17th with two new shows and a refresh of the papercuts “wintering” windows. There are cubs at play and new color for daylight hours. STILL, the best viewing times are after dark when there is drama at play.

Wildling Museum of Art & Nature

1511 Mission Drive, Solvang California

Springtime Fox Tale large papercuts

Springtime Fox Tale large papercuts

Springtime Fox Tale large papercuts

Springtime Fox Tale large papercuts

Save the Date - Summer 2021

Sullivan Goss will be hosting my first solo show in 5 years this Summer. I know! right?! Where did the time go? I’m sure some of you remember The River’s Journey, a huge endeavor and project that resulted in 4 individual exhibits spanning from February 2018 through June 2019. I was preoccupied and absorbed and then, you know, life happens. It’s not that I haven’t been working but other things needed tending and now my studio is bursting. I look forward to sharing new work again and I’m sure by the summer there will be several shows worth. Good luck to Susan sorting and finding the show within the piles.

Opening at the Wildling Museum this April!

Bio/Mass: Contemporary Meditations on Nature

Weather Patterns project. 24 included in the Bio/Mass exhibit at the Wildling

Bio: Relating to life and living beings

Mass: A large body of matter crowded together

Artists are observers and interpreters of what they see around them, whether it is a social concern, the natural world, the built environment or their own unique vision. Often artists work in series, exploring a particular topic as they deeply observe their subject over time. For artists, this repetition can serve both as a meditative practice and a means of learning and understanding.

In this exhibition, artists were chosen who create work in series, examining some aspect of nature. They may be examining patterns in nature or the same location over a long period of time. Some combine and recombine singular elements that accumulate into a fascinating and revealing artwork or body of work.

These artists have transformed their fascination with deep observations of their individual environments into works that help us to see the beauty in the details of our world, celebrating both quiet and dramatic moments in nature.

Featured Artists

Scott Chatenever, Lynn Hanson, Dorothy Churchill-Johnson, Karen Kitchel, Maria Rendón, John Robertson, Sommer Roman, Carol Saindon, Catherine Eaton Skinner, Libby Smith, and Nicole Strasburg.

Outside In at the Wildling Museum

Art Through the Window: A Conversation with Holli Harmon & Nicole Strasburg

In case you missed it, you can still watch the zoom presentations for The Nature of Clouds and Wintering: A Fox Tale on the Wildling Museum YouTube channel.

Thank you to the Wildling Musem as well as the Santa Barbara News Press, Santa Maria Sun and Lance Orozco with KCLU News for the wonderful coverage and support of the new installations at the museum.

Thank you to Caleb Wiseblood for his wonderful article in the Sun.

Thank you to the Newspress.

Thank you Lance Orozco and KCLU

Wintering .... there is beautiful art to be seen.

Winter Salon at Sullivan Goss in Santa Barbara

February Storm Quad, 29.5x78” Oil on Birch panel

Sullivan Goss presents a curated selection of pieces from our inventory and recent acquistions.

February 5th through March 22, 2021 at Sullivan Goss

11 East Anapamu, Santa Barbara

open every day from 10-530

A Fox Tale @ The Wildling Museum in Solvang

Wildling Museum unveils new Tower Gallery exhibition by Holli Harmon and window installation by Nicole Strasburg, encouraging sidewalk viewings during closure 

Tower Gallery Exhibition: Holli Harmon: The Nature of Clouds  |  On view: Now through Fall 2021

Window Installation: Wintering: A Fox Tale by Nicole Strasburg  |  On view: Now through Spring 2021

Location: Both installations on view from sidewalk, Wildling Museum, 1511-B Mission Drive, Solvang, CA 93463

 Accompanying the new Tower Gallery exhibition is a window art installation titled Wintering: A Fox Tale by artist Nicole Strasburg. The series of papercut fox silhouettes was specially designed by Strasburg to bring joy and wonder to passersby during the museum’s extended closure.

 “We wanted to create something exciting for the windows that would let everyone know we were only hibernating, not closed forever,” says Strasburg. “With my love for animals and the fox being the Wildling Museum mascot, it seemed fitting to do something with a fox theme.”

 Strasburg’s intricate papercutting technique transformed the museum’s windows into a dramatic winter landscape once lit.

“Wintering and hibernating are not always a dormant time, it’s also a time of great imagination and rejuvenation, a time to recharge,” says Strasburg. “Designing and cutting the paper images as well as configuring the armature to hold the creation were a wonderful way to pass the time in quarantine with the added benefit of bringing attention to the museum.”

Peace & Quiet @ Sullivan Goss, Santa Barbara

Press release from the gallery:

Sullivan Goss is pleased to offer an exhibition devoted to quietude for the new year. Battered by the pandemic, a hotly contested election, and an atmosphere marked by dread and hysteria, Gallery curators felt that the world could use a space for peace and contemplation. Drawing from its artists’ studios, collector consignments, and its own treasure vault, Sullivan Goss was able to assemble sixteen works spanning from 1890 to today that invite a meditative or peaceful state of mind. Installed with ample breathing room in the Gallery’s largest exhibition space, Sullivan Goss hopes to offer a refuge to weary artists, collectors, and visitors.

Each work has been carefully selected both to typify the artist’s best work and to help viewers slip away into reverie. Stylistically, the works range from late 19th and early 20th century Tonalist and Impressionist evocations by National Academicians Leon Dabo (1864-1960), Lockwood de Forest (1850-1932), and Colin Campbell Cooper to midcentury and contemporary “spacey” abstractions by William Dole (1917-1983) and Oskar Fischinger (1900-1967) to contemporary Tonalist and abstract works by Gallery stalwarts like Whitney Brooks Abbott, Meredith Brooks Abbott, Ken Bortolazzo, Susan McDonnell, Chris Peters, Nicole Strasburg, and Sarah Vedder. 

Art can be an effective emotional trigger. High contrast works with bright, hyper-saturated colors and dynamic compositions can excite us – stimulating increased energy and mental activity. Paintings and drawings that use a more restrained and harmonized palette or whose imagery and compositions invoke the pastoral or the dreamy have the opposite effect. They calm us. They soothe. Those in search of peace & quiet are hereby advised: you’ll find it at 11 East Anapamu Street for the months of January and February.

Morning Estuary, 48x24”, Oil on Birch Panel

Holiday Gallery Cheer

If you are looking for some much needed peace and beauty Sullivan Goss has three terrific shows on the walls now and the doors are open to visitors. 100 Grand, the annual celebration of local art in small format, still has plenty of precious gems awaiting homes. And in the back room is the Winter Salon which features many new works by the gallery’s stable of artists. Tomorrow we are expecting the first rain of winter, what a great way to spend some time if you can’t be outside!

Works by Nicole Strasburg, Ken Bortalazzo and Patricia Chidlaw

Westmont Ridley-Tree Museum of Art

Westmont Ridley-Tree Museum of Art is celebrating 10 years with the exhibit 5x5 showcasing work from artists around the country. The small 5x5” format and online auction began on December 3rd and runs through Friday, December 18th. Bidding closes sharply at 5p.m. Now is your chance to bid and take home one of these exceptional pieces.

My own contribution, Morning idyll, is a black bear from Alaska’s Katmai National National Park contemplating a morning bathe.

Don’t wait! Start your bidding now!

Morning Idyll 5x5” gouache on Sommerset Paper

Westmont Ridley-Tree Museum of Art

5x5 museum installation

100 GRAND @ Sullivan Goss

It is that amazing time of year again when Sullivan Goss in Santa Barbara puts on the annual 100 GRAND show. Gathering their stable of artists and a slew of local talent it is always the show not to be missed. It is a great opportunity to see work from new artists and find work from artists you love at an affordable grab. Start your collection or add to a growing one.

My contribution is a trio of gouache paintings representing a koi pond visited on the island of Oahu.

A merry start to the holiday for all. Be well. Stay safe.

Allegro 3.75x4” gouache on arches board frame to 13x11”

Animato, 3.75x4” gouache on arches board

Con Brio, 3.75x4” gouache on arches board

September at Sundance

Three new collections arriving this month at Sundance Online.

Sign up HERE be the first to hear about upcoming shows and sales.

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New landscapes images of mountains and sky by Nicole Strasburg.

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Sky Sea framed gouache paintings by Nicole Strasburg.

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Miniature gouache of Antelope Valley Pronghorn by Nicole Strasburg.

Summer Salon at Sullivan Goss in Santa Barbara

The Summer Salon at Sullivan Goss has officially opened. The exhibition will run through August 31, 2020. The gallery is open to stop by however better to make an appointment and have the 3 galleries to yourself to peruse all the new shows on the wall.

Road to Water Canyon Beach, Santa Rosa Island (22x17.5” oil on panel) on display with Ken Bortolazzo, Joseph Goldyne, Eric Beltz, and Will Simons.

SPRING SHOWS

Lotus 30x30”

“Lotus” will be included in the opening tomorrow night at Sullivan Goss “Masterworks” a group of gallery represented artists through June 23rd, 2019

AND

Winter Light 10x10”

Winter Light will be included in the exhibit opening next week at the Bakersfield Museum of Art. “The Sublime” is part of the 2019 Visual Arts Festival running through August 2019.

THE RIVER'S JOURNEY: REVISITED

White Rock at start of the Rey Fire, 2016 2.5x7” Gouache on Arches Board

There is still time to see The River’s Journey in the city of Santa Barbara in our historical City Hall.

This show is a smaller version of the Rose Compass exhibit hosted by the Wildling Museum last Winter.

On First Thursday, March 7 from 5-7pm there will be one last reception to celebrate this leg of our four venue exhbition. You can also see the last iteration of the show at Westmont Ridley Tree Museum on the Westmont campus in Montecito. That exhibit will remain on view until mid June of this year.

Check out the website and stories of the journey at rosecompass.com.

There is also a wonderful exhibition catalog that goes with the show. Find a copy in the shop or at a local bookstore.