Opening Reception: Lara Nickel

Lara Nickel will unveil a selection of her hyperrealist paintings, including several from her cactus and succulent series, at the grand opening of Collect SF– a new gallery and retail space created by Christina Swilley– on Thursday, July 11 from 6 to 8 pm on Manhattan Avenue in historic downtown Santa Fe.

Nickel, who works out of her studio in Santa Fe, paints everything as it appears to her in the real world. Thus, her cactus and succulent paintings are massive, over six feet tall, and immediately command a presence in the room. This new exhibition includes works from her floral, shellfish, and playing card series as well.

“I want the viewer to be seduced by the realness of a painting,” says Nickel, “to forget to a certain degree that it is a painting, and, at the same time, be bluntly reminded through its unusual display, that it is in fact just a painting, a created object-in other words-not reality in a visual sense, but a concrete reality they were not expecting in a physical sense.”