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NICOLE STRASBURG - Artists - Sullivan Goss Art Gallery

Jalama Coast, 2006

48 x 24 inches  |  oil on board

 

Nicole Strasburg was born in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1966. In the early 1970’s, the Strasburg family moved to Santa Barbara, California when Nicole’s father accepted a position at the University as a set and lighting design instructor. He had studied as a painter and received a degree in painting from the University of Utah. Nicole was greatly influenced by her father as a painter; the act of his painting, the solitary intimacy, the smell of turpentine, and the proximity to creative people all worked to ignite a creative spark in her mind.

Nicole was initially drawn to mathematics and had tentative sights set on a career in engineering. In her junior year of high school, however, Nicole was taken from a beginning drawing course and put directly into an advanced placement class. She worked primarily in graphite creating portraits of friends and of her self to master the art of drawing, At the urging of her art instructor, she completed an artist’s portfolio during her senior year to help gain entrance into a university. Nicole applied for and won a fellowship to the College of Creative Studies art department at UCSB. Still working primarily in graphite, it wasn’t until her junior year of college that she began her “long struggle with learning how to use oil and color.” Nicole completed a bachelor of arts degree in painting and drawing at UCSB and a few years later she spent a semester abroad in Paris, France.

Nicole’s work is increasingly sought after by collectors and has appeared on the cover and within the Sundance catalog as a popular sales item. Her aptitude with numbers compliments the business of marketing and making a living from art. Combining her left and right brain talents has made Nicole Strasburg a very successful living artist.

Videos

4:04  |  Narrated by Susan Bush  |  Released for NICOLE STRASBURG: Sea Change, 2021

3:43 | Narrated by Susan Bush | Released for Nicole Strasburg: 50 / 50, 2016

3:33 | Narrated by Susan Bush | Released for Nicole Strasburg: New Terrain, 2013

3:09 | Narrated by Frank Goss | Released for Nicole Strasburg: Islands, Valley, Home, 2011

4:22 | Narrated by Susan Bush | Released for NICOLE STRASBURG: Earth, Air, Fire, Water, 2009

3:07 | Narrated by Susan Bush | Released for THE RIVER'S JOURNEY: A Wider View, 2018

MORE INFORMATION

AN ANALYSIS OF THE ARTIST'S WORK

Nicole Strasburg’s paintings depict a reverence for nature. They are studied and focused showing how the artist spent time in meditation of a particular scene or environment. Nicole’s paintings pay homage to land, sea, and sky and share the moment of reverie she experienced in nature. While her work is not a direct translation of what she visually witnessed, it is a record of her inner world and how it was touched by a particular pairing of sea and sky or changing light on a grass covered mountain. An avid swimmer, Nicole’s close relationship to and understanding of water combines with her artistic vision to create intimate portraits of water’s ever-changing look.

The environments that Nicole records can evolve into abstract shapes, colors and brushstrokes. It is the paring down and minimalizing of shapes that give her images a contemporary look and not that of a traditional landscape artist. She describes her own work as “…impressionistic with a contemporary edge.”.Nicole has a unique technique for painting and materials:

"I choose to work on birch panels because they are easily manipulated by wiping, sanding, scraping, and drawing. My process of building the image becomes as much about putting on the paint as it is removing it. This process creates depth and movement between the layers of paint while keeping the surface of the painting relatively smooth."

The process of applying the paint and then removing it echoes the ebb and flow of the ocean tides evident in so many of Nicole’s paintings. Also evident is the precision and exactness of Nicole’s mathematical mind that is beautifully tempered by intuition and an emotional sensitivity to her surrounding environment.

EDUCATION

2001 Atelier Richard Tullis, Printmaking
2000 College of Santa Fe, Printmaking
1991 Santa Barbara City College Study Abroad Arts Program from France
1988 UC at Santa Barbara, B.A. in Drawing & Painting, with Honors & Distinction in the Major
1988 Abrams Prize

AWARDS & AFFILIATIONS

2001 Los Angeles Printmakers Association
2001 Santa Barbara Printmakers Association
1991 Fellowship International Study Abroad
1988 Presidents Undergraduate Fellowship, UC at Santa Barbara

COLLECTIONS

Craig Krull, Craig Krull Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
Santa Barbara Chamber of Commerce, Santa Barbara, CA
Jackson Browne, Santa Barbara, CA
Bejo Seeds, Oceano, CA
Ontario Surgery Center, Ontario, CA
Dr. & Mrs. Larry Sherman, Camarillo, CA
Dr. & Mrs. Myron Bloom, New York, NY
Lucinda Walker, Paramount Pictures, Los Angeles, CA
Mr. & Mrs. Daniel Murphy, Santa Monica, CA

 

EXHIBITIONS
Solo Exhibitions

2023  Nicole Strasburg: Surfacing, Sullivan Goss, Santa Barbara, CA

2021  Nicole Strasburg: Sea Change, Sullivan Goss, Santa Barbara, CA

2016  Nicole Strasburg: 50/50, Sullivan Goss, Santa Barbara, CA

2013  Nicole Strasburg: New Terrain, Sullivan Goss, Santa Barbara, CA

2011  Nicole Strasburg: Islands, Valleys, Home, Sullivan Goss, Santa Barbara, CA

2009  Nicole Strasburg: Air, Earth, Fire, Water, Sullivan Goss, Santa Barbara, CA

2007  Nicole Strasburg: Tidal Change, Sullivan Goss, Santa Barbara, CA

2006  40+40@40, Sullivan Goss, Santa Barbara, CA

2004  Individual Artist Award Show, recipient for printmaking by Santa Barbara Arts Fund, Arts Fund Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA

2003, 2002  Lisa Coscino Gallery, Monterey, CA

2002  Art in the Vault, online gallery

2001  Atelier Richard Tullis, Santa Barbara, CA

Group Exhibitions (selected list):

2004  Atelier Richard Tullis, 20-Year Retrospective Exhibition, University Art Museum, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA

2004  Cover & featured artist, Sundance summer catalog

2004  Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Art Rental & Sales Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2004  11th Annual Santa Barbara Printmakers Competition, Second Prize, Juror Tobey Moss of Tobey Moss Gallery

2002  Women Beyond Borders, University Art Museum, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA

2002  Second City Council, Long Beach, CA (Juried)

2002  Los Angeles Printmaking Society, Old Town Gallery, Tustin, CA

2002, 2001, 2000  Contemporary Arts Forum, Santa Barbara, CA

2001  Bloomingdale Park Museum, Bloomingdale, Illinois

2001  Sausalito Art Festival, Sausalito, CA

2001 Connecticut Graphic Arts Center (print exhibit)

2001 Santa Barbara Printmakers Association (First Prize)

2001  Hansen Howard Gallery, Ashland, OR

2001, 2000  Lisa Coscino Gallery, Monterey, CA

2000  CA Collector’s Gallery, Kentfield, CA

2000  Santa Barbara City College, CA ( Juried)

2000  Le Merridien, Beverly Hills, CA

2000  Terrain, San Francisco, CA

2000  College of Creative Studies, UC at Santa Barbara, CA

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