The Rainbow Two
September 17–November 6, 2020
Ron Veasey Online Viewing Room: September 17
Creative Growth is pleased to announce The Rainbow Two, our first gallery exhibition since shelter in place orders went into effect in March. Titled by artist Nicole Storm, this shared exhibition of paintings by herself and Ron Veasey celebrates their work in Creative Growth’s Studio over 25 years. One artist maintains an abstract practice, the other figurative, yet both have developed highly skilled artistic voices and advanced modes of expression that push the viewer to reconcile preconceived ideas of process, content, and context.
Learn more about Ron and Nicole’s practices in an in-depth conversation with SFMoMA curator Nancy Lim and Creative Growth Studio Special Projects Coordinator Kathleen Henderson.
Ron Veasey (born 1957, Las Vegas, Nevada) has been attending Creative Growth since 1981, and is one of the organization's longest practicing artists. Although Ron’s process has evolved in technique and scale during the last four decades, his fundamental interests in the human gaze and using the body as a vehicle for color and line have remained central to his practice. Whether his paintings incorporate a sideways glance or an angular gesture, his carefully considered portraits are completed methodically, and with great intention. For Ron, inspiration comes from source material. His early work translated images from fashion magazines, and we can easily see the through line of his attraction to intense emotion and simplified form in his recent series of portraits. Work featured in this series is drawn from the catalogue of Figures & Fictions: Contemporary South African Photography, a 2011 exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. If photographs are filters of reality, then Ron's paintings are conversations with the photographs he selects. His portraits are large and vivid—emblematic of his preference for bright colors, heightened emotion, and puzzle-like fields of abstract shapes used to portray the body. Often painted with bright yellow eyes, Ron’s figures either look at the viewer unabashedly or fiercely off to the side. Ron is able to uniquely extract the sentiment of an image through sophisticated technique and a complex understanding of human emotion.
For Nicole Storm (Creative Growth artist since 1995), the process of creation is paramount to the final painting. She walks the building, rides the elevator, and retreats into corners, carrying her work around with her as she adds layers and detail to her paintings. This is a key component of her process, and its ambulatory nature functions as a way for her to gather and harvest visual information. Although Nicole is not performing for anyone, watching her work is akin to watching a contemporary performance piece—she hums, takes breaks to dance, engages others in conversation, and then suddenly decides to move her artwork and clipboard to another location. The peripatetic nature of her process is the work itself, and what we have are the remains. She moves seamlessly between mark making with paint markers to painting with a brush, working and re-working the surface until she feels it is finished. Nicole favors vibrant hues and likes to incorporate many layers of washes under and over her “notes,” which are free-form observations and lists that she simultaneously records on her paintings and separate surfaces (calendars, show cards, pieces of cardboard, and sometimes the floor). What began as a proposal for Nicole to direct the installation of her pre-existing work for The Rainbow Two has become an evolving site-specific work itself. Nicole has been using the walls as a canvas to create an enormous collage that she continues to synthesize by adding new pieces as she finishes them and by painting directly on the walls around them. Nicole will continue to work one day per week in the Gallery for the duration of the exhibition (while observing the strictest COVID-19 safety protocols).
To learn more about Nicole and Ron’s practices, check out our interview with Gallery Director Sarah Galender Meyer and Studio Special Projects Coordinator Kathleen Henderson.
The Rainbow Two will be on view in Creative Growth’s Gallery by appointment only on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays starting September 17. The Gallery is operating under Alameda County-mandated safety protocols. Please review the guidelines below and ensure that you are in accordance before your visit:
Face masks or coverings over the nose and mouth are required
Maintain a minimum six-foot distance from staff members or other visitors you are not traveling with
Sneeze and cough into a cloth or tissue or, if not available, into your elbow
Wash hands often
Do not shake hands or engage in any unnecessary physical contact
Please refrain from visiting the Gallery if you are feeling unwell or have any COVID-19 symptoms