NinaJohnson

Nicole Wittenberg: Comin’ Thro’ the Rye

October 21st - November 25th, 2017

There is a moment when you view Nicole's paintings in which you are unsure of what you're looking at; a brief second during which your body is drawn to the fluidity of the paint, a moment during which you don't recognize the shame of finding yourself inside a lustful image. The feminist in you then fights against this imposed shame and you are wholeheartedly embraced by the image, by the rapturous feeling of being lost, sweating and draped, pressed into the grass. Tom Ford argues, "All men should be penetrated at some point. And not as in emotions. All men should be fucked. I think it would help them understand women.” ¹ 

These paintings force an objective view, an androgynous viewpoint. The process of creating these works, much like the sex they describe, are about the accumulation of energy. At the core is a Kinetic desire to engage with the feeling of being alive right now.

This will be Nicole's first solo exhibition in Miami and includes, ink studies, small paintings and several large scale works painted with the bristles of a broom.

¹ Brodesser-Akner, Taffy. “Tom Ford on Sex, Death, and Penetration.” GQ, GQ, 5 Dec. 2016, www.gq.com/story/tom-ford-interview-nocturnal-animals-moty.

About Nicole Wittenberg
Nicole Wittenberg lives and works in New York. Recent exhibitions include Look! New Acquisitions at the Albertina Museum in Vienna; The Female Gaze, Part Two, Cheim & Read, New York, NY; Nice Weather Skarstedt Gallery, New York, NY; the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA. She was awarded the American Academy of Arts and Letters John Koch award for best young figurative painter in 2012. Wittenberg teaches Critical Theory at School of Visual Arts in New York and has taught at Bruce High Quality Foundation University and the New York Studio School. Her work is included in the Albertina Museum, Vienna, Austria Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA; Aishti Foundation, Beirut; Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, ME; Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, ME; Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, ME; Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME. She received her BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2003.

About Nina Johnson
Nina Johnson is a contemporary art space in Miami, Florida. Opened as Gallery Diet in 2007, the gallery has produced exhibitions by emerging and established artists from around the world. 

  • Nicole Wittenberg, Comin' Thro' the Rye, 2017. Oil on canvas. 54 x  72 in.
  • Tumble in the Hay, 2017 Oil on canvas 72 x 48 in.
  • Installation View.
  • Lunch Hour, 2017 Oil on canvas 36 x 48 in.
  • Installation View.
  • Installation View.
  • Installation View.
  • Upside Down Blue Ben, 2017 Oil on canvas 40 x 30 in.
  • Upside Down Ben Undone, 2017 Oil on canvas 40 x 30 in. Installation View