Nicole Irene Anderson

This series of paintings comes from my solitary explorations during the pandemic. I traveled to different Bay Area towns to photograph and sketch from my car window. I was struck by the calm and eeriness of the streets in the absence of people. Things that would have been mundane became intriguing, while the realities of climate change couldn’t help but enter in. These intimate paintings reflect on the fragility of people and their communities, and the overwhelming challenge of confronting climate change. 

Anderson was born in 1993 in Cambria, California. She studied at Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo, where she received an A.A. in Studio Art (2015) and an A.A. in Art History and Professional Practices (2015). She then studied at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco, where she earned a B.F.A. in Painting/Drawing (2017). Anderson’s work has been shown in exhibitions throughout the San Francisco Bay Area–most recently at the Museum of Sonoma County. She is a recipient of the Discovered: Emerging Visual Artist Grant (2019) from Creative Sonoma. She earned the Louis and Lundy Siegriest Memorial Scholarship (2015), and the Ted Doyle Scholarship (2016) at the California College of the Arts. Anderson works at her studio in Santa Rosa, California.