It’s Just My Nature
Shaunda Holloway and Jasmine Nikole
Atticus Bookstore Cafe
New Haven
Nov. 2-30
When New Haven artist Shaunda Holloway was in kindergarten, she remembers being fascinated by a cactus in her classroom. So fascinated, in fact, “I stuck my whole hand in it.”
“I spent the whole day at the nurse’s office,” she said, no regret in her voice.
Decades later, she found herself hunting for cacti in California with her friend Jasmine Nikole, an artist with the same fearless, hands-on approach to life. The two told me about their Oakland adventure over coffee Friday morning at Atticus Bookstore Cafe on Chapel.
Filling in the gaps were the cafe walls themselves, displaying the textured organic materials and endless painted fields of Holloway’s and Nikole’s nature-themed artwork in a month-long duo exhibition that just wrapped Sunday.
The show’s title was It’s Just My Nature, touching on the organic subject matter as well as the two artists’ miraculously synchronized personalities.
“The environment is the umbrella that covers every living thing,” Holloway told me. Her choice of printmaking material reflects that understanding. Rather than remain in the realm of blank white pages, Holloway often opts for backgrounds with history: rough, freckled sheets in shades of brown, or fabric with an existing floral pattern. Through “transforming something that could easily be discarded” into an object of careful consideration, she invites the audience to see their surroundings as a rich starting point for new beginnings.
The relationship between people and the environment goes beyond one’s standing in society, Nikole added. She looked toward the lavender fields in the background of one of her portraits, telling me about the flowers’ carefree beauty and medicinal benefits.
In the painting, a figure in a sheer white dress and flowers in her hair looks back toward the viewer, soft edges melting her into the canvas. Behind her, lavender fields blossom as far as the eye can see. Clouds in the distance, forming and reforming themselves, add a storybook serenity to the scene.
This was the piece that first made me look up from my coffee earlier that week, exchanging books and cassettes with a new friend, to realize there was an exhibit on the cafe walls—one I wanted to learn more about from the artists themselves.
“No matter where we are, separate or together, we’re always talking about each other,” Nikole said of Holloway. As an interviewer, I can attest to that; many of the gems I learned about each artist came from a story told by the other.
“Shaunda has taught me a lot about Black culture, about nature, about art,” Nikole told me, describing how Holloway would reference artists who would then expand Nikole’s worldview.
“Jasmine keeps me savvy,” Holloway said in response. And “she will definitely stop and absorb the beauty around you.”
Nikole’s creative drive, like Holloway’s, started at a young age. As a kid, she used to paint in her sketchbooks until the pages curled up. She painted her favorite things, often cartoons.
Nikole told me she has often felt like “the only one,” building up pockets of community from an early age out of a strong empathy for others who might feel the same way. Her painting practice, it seems, is an extension of that journey.
“I hope that people can find peace and connection” in the art, she said. “Maybe I’m not the only one,” Nikole hopes the viewer might say after experiencing her paintings.
Are the people in the portraits lonely? No, she told me. She directed me to look at the eyes of the figure in the lavender field. “Come on. She’s saying, Are you coming or not?” Holloway and I both laughed. The pose, self-assured with a hint of suggestion, matched Nikole’s narration perfectly.
Holloway also walks at her own pace, a trait that sometimes leads to distance. She has traveled with people who didn’t understand her. They would keep going, leaving her behind as she marveled at a pattern that caught her eye.
When Nikole told me about her trip with Holloway, it was exactly this quality she raved about most. She told me Holloway would stop on the sidewalk to look at the concrete beneath her feet. Their descriptions of the vegetable stalls in Oakland’s Chinatown made me wonder if I’d ever seen vegetables before. When Holloway told me about the cacti—taller than anything around here, she said—both artists’ eyes lit up.
“It was refreshing to travel with somebody who has that equal appreciation for nature,” Holloway said of Nikole.
Holloway’s own reverence for the natural world informs her approach to making art. She told me she aims to “highlight what’s already there,” teaching people how to see in new ways. What people “walk by, overlook, devalue” form the basis for Holloway’s transformations.
In her monotype “A New Direction,” Holloway balances clean, symmetric design with the irregular edges of a waxed paper inlaid with rough string, framing the image of a mask with dark feather silhouettes. While spontaneity can sometimes come at the cost of composition, Holloway finds a way to stay loose and harmonious at the same time, leaving enough space for everything to fall into.
Holloway isn’t afraid to experiment with materials, making use of items familiar to the Atticus crowd; sometimes she adds color the subjects’ faces using coffee.
“The work is always therapeutic,” she said. “When you are producing rapidly, organically, there is a euphoria that can’t be matched. You’re producing continuously. Nothing feeds you in quite the same way. It’s not external, you don’t have to download it.” When the flow is right, it’s a phenomenon the artist has the controls to.
So how does Holloway know when to stop? “That has definitely been a swordfight,” Holloway said, laughing. I was asking partially for my own sake, knowing I had a piece in the studio waiting to be overworked. Holloway’s advice was just what I needed to hear.
Letting yourself stop, she said, “has to do with addressing issues of inadequacy.” It is difficult, but ultimately rewarding, to feel like what you have is enough.
A light touch doesn’t have to be dainty. With enough connection throughout the composition of a piece, subtle details can convey deep power.
Hidden in the edges and highlights of Nikole’s lavender painting is a magic trick borrowed from Mother Nature herself: a warm orange underneath the other hues, infusing the scene with a radiant glow.
“Every time I see the sun glow orange, it just stops me dead in my tracks,” Nikole told me. In allowing herself to be halted by the world, she finds friends like Holloway waiting alongside her. And when she is ready to share what she has seen, it’s the world’s turn to catch its breath.
Inquire about art pieces by contacting Shaunda Holloway at brighteyesholloway@gmail.com or Jasmine Nikole at jasminenikoleartcollection@gmail.com
