Statement

I create mixed-media paintings using oil, casein, graphite pencil, metalpoint, and charcoal that explore complex questions of land, home, human-caused climate change, and the psychological impact of the expansion of the American West through the language of the landscape centered around my home state of California. 

Growing up in Cambria, a small community on the Central Coast of California, my earliest memories were peering out at the Santa Lucia Mountains to the east of our neighborhood. Over time, I noticed the Monterey Pine trees, a rare species of pine that grows almost exclusively in this region, become weaker from the severe drought brought on by a changing climate. These familiar surroundings became a source of comfort and a marker of home. As I observed the adjacent towns undergo rapid development, an unsettling feeling crept over me. This early experience of forming a connection with place, watching it change before my eyes, and contemplating the possibility of it not being there in the future instilled an urgency that motivates the work I create today.

In my work, I inquire into the culture and the motivations of what has brought settlers in California to this moment and how that could be represented in a landscape painting. I want to depict a version of California that takes on this burden and is more authentic to what I observe and experience emotionally as a land with a complicated and violent history of dreams and unrealized dreams. I visit overlooked places that become visual metaphors for more significant societal and environmental concerns, making a case for empathy and care that should be practiced for the land that holds us.

Biography

Nicole Irene Anderson (b. 1993, Cambria, CA, United States) earned a B.F.A. in Painting/Drawing from California College of the Arts in San Francisco and is a current M.F.A. candidate at the University of California, Davis. The artist has participated in exhibitions at the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art (San Luis Obispo, CA); the Museum of Sonoma County (Santa Rosa, CA); the David Brower Center (Berkeley, CA); and Root Division (San Francisco, CA). Most recently, Anderson was included in a two-person presentation in FOG FOCUS at the FOG Design+Art fair (San Francisco, CA) with Johansson Projects, and in the fall of 2024, she will have her first solo exhibition with the gallery. Anderson has received grants from the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation and the Discovered: Emerging Visual Artist Grant from Creative Sonoma and is a recipient of the Mary Lou Osborn Award from the University of California, Davis. Her work has been documented in catalogs and featured in Sonoma Magazine and New American Paintings. Anderson is represented by Johansson Projects in Oakland, California. She currently lives in Santa Rosa and works in Davis, California. 

Photograph by Erik Castro