Nicole Strasburg

Nicole Strasburg’s paintings pay homage to land, sea, and sky.She describes her work as “impressionistic with a contemporary edge.The environments she records can evolve into abstract shapes, colors and brushstrokes.

stras-teafire

It is the paring down and minimalizing of shapes that give her images a contemporary look and not that of a traditional landscape artist. While her work is not a direct translation of what she visually witnessed, it is a record of her inner world and how it was touched by a particular pairing of sea and sky or changing light on a grass covered mountain. An avid swimmer, Nicole’s close relationship to and understanding of water combines with her artistic vision to create intimate portraits of water’s ever-changing look.

Nicole has a unique technique for painting and materials:“I choose to work on birch panels because they are easily manipulated by wiping, sanding, scraping, and drawing. My process of building the image becomes as much about putting on the paint as it is removing it. This process creates depth and movement between the layers of paint while keeping the surface of the painting relatively smooth.”

The process of applying the paint and then removing it echoes the ebb and flow of the ocean tides evident in so many of Nicole’s paintings. Also evident is the precision and exactness of Nicole’s mathematical mind that is beautifully tempered by intuition and an emotional sensitivity to her surrounding environment.