Nicole Herz
Artist's Statement: New York Paintings
Architectural elements, especially rooftops, play a personified role in the New York works of painter Nicole Herz.
Herz explains, “My paintings depict the smaller skyline of New York City. They are inspired by the rooftops of the 19th century industrial-era factory buildings and smaller-scale residences of lower Manhattan and Brooklyn. On the roofs of these older buildings, I find complex relationships among the shapes, hues and textures of water towers, skylights, chimneys, vents and antennas.”
Through simplification, abstraction and the editing of color, composition and form, she isolates the objects and highlights their relationships to each other and to the sky. Herz says, “By reinterpreting the scene, I create a personal mood of place and time that expresses my most intimate reaction to the subjects.” Her work is primarily small in scale—further interpreting her personal connection to the cityscapes she creates.
Maine Paintings
Herz's interest in the simplification and abstraction of form continued to manifest itself in her paintings of rural Maine. In her early Maine paintings, she explores the worlds she finds both inside and reflected in the windows of abandoned houses and barns. Once inhabited and full of life, these old houses and barns now exist on their own terms, still and sculpture-like. The abstraction of the structures celebrates the fundamental beauty of their form while evoking the lingering presence of past inhabitants.
Her most recent work explores how the colors, textures and forms of both man-made structures, and natural structures-trees, relate to the same elements in the landscape that surrounds them. By reinterpreting the scene, I create a personal mood of place and time that expresses my most intimate reaction to the subjects.
On July 29, 2008, Herz lost 15 paintings in a fire at the Wingspread Gallery in Northeast Harbor, Maine. This was a devastating loss, not only because of the quantity, but because the paintings consisted of most of her current, available work. Many of these paintings were inspired by houses that have been since torn down. These paintings memorialized these old structures that are vanishing from our landscape. Now the paintings are gone, too. All 15 paintings can be viewed on the website.
For more information, please email
Born
New York City, 1966.
Education
Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA. Bachelor of Fine Arts, May 1989. Major: Painting; Minor: Sculpture.
Temple University Abroad, Spring Semester, 1988. Rome, Italy.
High School of Music and Art, Diploma, June 1985. New York, NY.
Exhibitions
Blum Gallery, College of the Atlantic, Bar Harbor, ME, 2009
Freeport Square Gallery, "Where There's Art There's Hope", Freeport, ME, 2009
MDI Historical Society, "BIG and small", Mount Desert, ME, 2009
Wingspread Gallery, Northeast Harbor, ME, 2008
Stadler Gallery, Kingfield, ME, 2007
Wingspread Gallery, Northeast Harbor, ME, 2007
The Window Tree Gallery, Brunswick, ME, 2006
Wingspread Gallery, Northeast Harbor, ME, 2006
Maine Art Gallery, Wiscasset, ME, 2005
Wingspread Gallery, Northeast Harbor, ME, 2005
Reel Pizza Cinerama, Bar Harbor, ME, 2005
Wingspread Gallery, Northeast Harbor, ME, 2004
George Billis Gallery, Industrial Beauty, New York, NY, 2004
Shaw Gallery, Northeast Harbor, ME, 2004
Manhattan Athletics Club, New York, NY., 2004
The Hay Gallery, The Urban Show, Portland, ME, 2003 Where There
BIG and smallWingspread Gallery, Northeast Harbor, ME, 2003
Shaw Gallery, Northeast Harbor, ME, 2003
Blum Gallery, College of the Atlantic, Shelter, Bar Harbor, ME, 2003
Thorndike Library, College of the Atlantic, Solo show, Bar Harbor, ME, 2003
Wingspread Gallery, Northeast Harbor, ME, 2002
Manhattan Athletics Club, New York, NY, 2001
The New York Historical Society, Up on The Roof, New York, NY, 2001
Flounders Society, Bar Harbor, ME, 2001
Allbright Knox Gallery, Buffalo, NY., 2000
George Billis Gallery, Solo show, New York, NY, 2000
Westchester Medical Center, A Winters Tale, 19 Regional Artists, Valhalla, NY, 2000
George Billis Gallery, New York, NY, 1999
Tribeca Artists, OIM, New York, NY, 1998
Franklin Fest, New York, NY, 1998
New York Law School, City Light, Six New York Painters, New York, NY, 1998
The Puffin Room, The Loft Pioneer Show, New York, NY, 1996
Organization of Independent Artists, Darker Visions, New York, NY, 1996
420 West Broadway, S.O.S. Art Exhibition, New York, NY, 1995
s Art ThereMichael Ingbar Gallery, Architectural Details of NYC, New York, NY, 1994
Michael Ingbar Gallery, Concrete Erections, NYC Architecture, New York, NY, 1993
Organization of Independent Artists, Structures and Surfaces, New York, NY, 1992
Ward-Nasse Gallery, City Views, New York, NY., 1991
Forbes Gallery, Invitational Exhibit, curated by Annegreth Nill, Pittsburgh. PA, 1989