Artist's Statement
Investigate. Struggle. Evolve.
Based in Southern California, Kathleen Nicholson is a figurative painter whose works are held in numerous private and corporate collections and have been featured in an array of group exhibitions. Her formal artistic development began on the East Coast, where she studied painting, drawing, and textile design at Southeastern Massachusetts University (now the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth). She subsequently earned a Master of Fine Arts from Southern Illinois University. Since relocating to Los Angeles in 1988, Nicholson has maintained a prominent profile as a gallery artist, producing an extensive body of work and fulfilling major commissions in association with prestigious institutions such as the Koplin Gallery, Hunsaker/Schlesinger Gallery, and Erickson & Elins Gallery.
Personal Statement
My artistic practice is grounded in the belief that continual evolution is essential to sustained inquiry. From its inception, my work has focused on the relational power of color—how one chromatic note placed beside another generates structure, tension, and resolution. Through these relationships, form emerges, and the painting establishes its internal coherence.
I engage abstraction and representation as parallel and interconnected strategies, allowing color to operate as the primary organizing force within the composition. Rather than prioritizing literal depiction, I use color to define spatial relationships and to mediate between observed reality and perceptual experience. When these chromatic relationships are resolved, the work achieves a sense of unity and balance.
Each painting functions as a reinterpretation of its subject, shaped by perception, memory, and intuition. My intention is not to reproduce what is seen, but to translate experience into a visual language that reflects a singular point of view, inviting the viewer into an intimate encounter with the work.
Material exploration plays a critical role in sustaining this practice. When my work reaches a point of stagnation, I shift mediums to reframe familiar subjects through new technical and conceptual challenges. This process-driven approach resists repetition and encourages risk-taking, ensuring continued growth. I have worked extensively in oil, gouache, watercolor, pastel, and assemblage.
