What does it mean to live a life in art? My experience making art started as a child sitting on the kitchen floor with paper and crayons. This beginning has led me to places I'd never imagined. I'm currently an artist-in-residence at the Bakehouse Art Complex and an art education specialist at a Miami museum. Art allows people to communicate thoughts and feelings that can't find form otherwise. Art surprises, makes us see in a new way, cultivates empathy, and inspires us. In writing for xzib, share the art made in Miami that needs attention.
This international city has a unique art community. I moved here from the Northeast in 2017 to become a part of it. Here artists support each other and exchange ideas, many also curate. There are key people who are working full force to help artists achieve their full potential. Leaders in museums, galleries, boards, non-profit art spaces, and artist residencies meet together. They elevate the city's culture because the arts enrich everyone. The art marketplace can empower artists with the resources to make their work. It can also cloud what's important. I write about that has genuine artistic value in my eyes.
Nicole Maynard writings
Solo Exhibitions
2017, 2013, 2008, 2006, 2004, 2003, 1999 Bowery Gallery | NY, NY
2011 AS220 | Providence, RI
2005 Rochester Contemporary | Rochester, NY
Group Exhibitions
2022 Artists Open Miami | Miami-Dade County Open Studios
2022 Art & Stroll | Business for the Arts Broward | Ft. Lauderdale, FL
2022 Taplin Gallery | Miami, FL | curated by Mark Runge
2021 Viewpoints | Audrey Love Gallery | Miami, FL | curated by Eduard Duval Carrie and Laura Novoa 2021 Portfolio Series | Coral Gables Museum | Coral Gables, FL 2022 Bowery Gallery, At Home in the Studio | NY, NY 2020 Amerant Bank, Women in the Arts, Coral Gables, FL curated by Espacio Visible 2019 Between the Legible and the Opaque: Approaches to an Ideal in Place | curated by Adler Guerrier | Bakehouse Art Complex | Miami, FL
2019 Material Abstraction | Flow 305 Gallery | Miami, FL
2019 Nat. Juried Painting Exhibition | Univ. of Southern MS | curated by Bill Scott 2019 50th Anniv. Exhibition | Bowery Gallery | NY, NY
2019 Artists Open Miami | Miami-Dade County Open Studios
2018 Art Basel Studio Tour | Bakehouse Art Complex | Miami, FL
2018 Frank Contemporaries Gallery | Pembroke Pines, FL
2018 Bakehouse Artists | Audrey Love Gallery | Curator Danielle Damas | Miami, FL
2018 Bedrock: Paintings by Nicole Maynard-Sahar and Jason Aponte | Bakehouse Art Complex | Miami, FL
2018 New Work | Bakehouse Art Complex | Miami, FL
2017 Pinta Contemporary Art Fair | Miami, FL
2017 Art Basel Studio Tour | Bakehouse Art Complex | Miami, FL
2016 Three Painters | Fountain Street Gallery | Framingham, MA 2016 Adjacent Realities | Concord Art Association | Concord, MA 2015 Curious Encounters | Gallery 51 | North Adams, MA | Jurors: Denise Markonish, Curator at Mass. MoCAJay Clark, Curator Clark Art Institute
2014 Serious Play | Mass. College of Art & Design | Boston, MA
“I use color and paint to depict otherworldly places on the edge.”
Originally from Boston, Massachusetts, Nicole Maynard-Sahar earned a BFA with majors in Painting and Art Education from MA College of Art and Design and a MFA in Painting from the University of Pennsylvania, in what is essentially an American/New York painting tradition. Moving to Miami in 2017 threw this background into relief; her art continues to evolve, being inspired and challenged by her colleagues in Miami’s vibrant contemporary art scene. Born in 1971, as a child Maynard-Sahar spent a lot of time alone reading, drawing, watching television, thinking and observing. She became an artist because of her uncle, a painter and fashion model who passed on a life-long passion for art and art mentorship. Examples of many formative experiences included seeing him paint a mural in the kitchen when she was six and the gift of her first oil paint set. His career in fashion brought him to Miami, where he died of AIDS in 1987. Nicole Maynard-Sahar is an artist-in-residence at the Bakehouse Art Complex in Miami’s Wynwood Arts District.
Mediums painting, drawing, collage, digital images
Studio Bakehouse Art Complex
Recent Show Audrey Love Gallery
Which artwork is the most personally meaningful to you?
Nicole Maynard Sea and City
"Sea and City" is a painting that I began in 2017 and went back into, completing in 2022. This process of working is personally meaningful. The risk of destroying work for the sake of taking it further is a mindset that is key to developing one's vision.
Is there a piece that signifies a breakthrough for you?
"2, 3, 4" is a breakthrough painting. My paintings pre-pandemic were gestural abstractions. During the pandemic they became hard-edged geometric abstractions. "Freedom" and "lockdown" are not synonymous. I began this painting in September 2021 and completed it April 2022. The gestural brushstrokes in primary colors assert independence and freedom. Those three building blocks of color theory break into the space with a playful, party crashing attitude.
"2, 3, 4," oil on linen, 30" x 40," September 2021 - April 2022
Is there an artwork you’ve made that surprised you?
"The Space Between" shows degrees of psychological distance. Anthropomorphic spheres (Jung thought the circle was a symbol for the self) are precisely spaced. A green sphere peaks around a corner. One balances on a beam. Another seems to gaze at a screen. Seven gather together in an orange room. The energy of the tornado that swirls around them, filling the air surprised even me. Upon reflection, the tornado is Covid.
The Space Between oil on linen 30x40 Nicole Maynard-Sahar
How did you use materials to communicate your ideas?
I admire multi-disciplinary art and artists. I'm a painter, sticking to a substance that's basically colored glue. You might hear the word, "plasticity" applied to paint. It's true - paint can be magically turned into anything. Painters do this to varying degrees. Some painters paint objects that feel as though you can reach out and touch them, people you could talk to, and places you can walk through. Although my work is abstract, I make some things feel like architecture and others like soft foliage. I can paint the ground. I can even paint air. Light reflects their color. Paint lets me create places in my mind for others to see.
The Space Between oil on linen 30x40 Nicole Maynard-Sahar
Which of your artworks reminds you of your youth or where you’re from?
It started with houses like the ones in the suburb outside Boston where I'm from. The pointed roofs aren't like those in Miami. The planes of green suggest mowed lawns. An expressive sun is in the upper right corner, the place that kids feel it belongs. Bright, cheery colors simultaneously dance, make, and break the image.
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