Curated by Amanda Badgett, Professor of Art History, Napa Valley College
Opening reception Wednesday September 14th 4pm to 6pm
Closing event Saturday October 15 th 12 to 4
Napa Valley College Visual Arts Center
2277 Napa Vallejo Hwy, Napa, CA 94558
Gallery Hours: Monday-Friday, 9am – 4:30pm
“I frequently use my own backyard dinners, the string lights in my trees or the nature that surrounds me as motifs for my paintings. I pull from my own experiences, believing the personal can speak universally. With the 2020 California wildfires, my connection to the landscape as well as to painting became much more profound. Until now, I have never used my process so overtly to work through my own trauma and grief. It weighs with an enormous gravity. I am confronting the security of my own existence as well as the security of the landscape we all share.”
The exhibition is curated by Amanda Badgett, art history professor at Napa Valley College who writes: “Through her paintings and prints, Nancy gives lie to the idea of a static landscape: a grove of redwoods, all blackened and spindly in one canvas, emerges in another bristling with new growth. In a valley whose economic well-being is inextricably tied to agriculture, looking at Nancy’s images reminds us of the fragility of landscape in the face of global warming and the now ever-present threat of fire.”