Nancy Coleman

My work is about encouraging others to see things differently--whether through a lens, with paints, with wax, or assembling bits and pieces to re-do whatever shows up at my fingertips. I think my broad experimentation with a variety of subjects through a myriad of mediums is intrinsic to my always trying to figure out what life is all about: where is the center, what is of fundamental value, am I worthy, what is the meaning if there is any meaning at all. 

Though making art has been an integral part of my life ever since I can remember, the decades I spent overseeing work for clients of my design firm (The Ideas Group in San Francisco) taught me a great deal about how people see and understand line and color, and how to finesse composition. Mostly, I learned about concepts and how one could express them visually.

Nowadays, I create fine art using a variety of mediums, including painting, encaustic, mixed media, and photography, often with digital editing. After completing a 22-foot brush-painted outdoor mural in Georgetown (Seattle), I became especially enthusiastic about the technique I developed for the mural using layers of cursive text to create almost-abstracts, and completed a body of such works for a solo show at Gallery 110, Pioneer Square in Seattle, in 2015. This line work led to a series of paintings in acrylic and encaustic with oil pastel – all depicting water. In this process, I am developing new works which straddle the line from abstract to representational, which a graphic punch. They will be shown at Gallery 110 in November, 2016, in an exhibit titled Water Is Everything.

I joined Gallery 110 in May 2013, and am active in helping the gallery to maintain a professional standing in the art community. For over three years as a volunteer, I have facilitated monthly art workshops for the psychiatric and rehab units at Harborview Medical Center. In 2016, I organized a program of art workshops for homeless children and mothers at Mary's Place in Seattle.

My work has been exhibited in numerous venues throughout Seattle, San Francisco Bay Area, Monterey, Los Angeles, and New York, and is a permanent part of the city collections of Seattle, Palo Alto and City of Seatac, as well as in private homes and offices in both hemispheres. I enjoyed my partnership in a fine art photography gallery in Half Moon Bay CA; served on the Palo Alto Public Art Commission, leaving as Chair in 2011; and was one of the founding photographers of a teaching studio in Silicon Valley.

It was late 2011 when I moved with my husband to Seattle.