"Girl in a Box, Girl in Cherry Silk” by Riki R. Nelson.
Los Gatos oil painter Riki R. Nelson will be debuting her new collection of jazz portraits, cityscapes and local bar scenes at Peabody Fine Art Gallery next Monday. Titled “A New Direction,” Nelson uses a combination of realism and expressionism to paint figures and subjects all inspired by the Los Gatos community.
Nelson’s exhibit will mark the last art show at Peabody Fine Art Gallery in Los Gatos. The gallery makes a permanent move to Menlo Park next month.
Calling contemporary realist painting her “permanent obsession,” Nelson said that she always finds new ways to be inspired by the people and places of Los Gatos, her hometown since she moved here as a teenager.
“A lot of times people will go outside their area [to find inspiration], but I know Los Gatos. I know the town,” she said. “I think that whether you paint locally or you paint in Moscow, you’re still going to bring to it as an artist how you perceive it. A really good artist can paint a walnut and give it personality.”
One of the primary focuses of “A New Direction” are paintings of musicians performing at the weekly summer music series “Jazz on the Plazz.”
“The idea of painting musicians came from me being an artist, painting other artists, creating their own art. It’s this multi-layered capturing of the act of creation, and I was intrigued as an artist doing that,” said Nelson.
Bar scenes are another repeating subject of her new collection. One of the paintings that will be showing at the July 20 exhibit, titled “Girl in a Box, Girl in Cherry Silk,” depicts a real-life scene at 180 Restaurant & Lounge in Los Gatos.
180 Restaurant used to feature lingerie models posing in glass boxes after 11pm every night inside their lounge. Nelson’s painting depicts two women, one in the foreground with a stern look, the other a scantily clad and lying on her stomach.
“You have this racy little thing happening in this very upscale, contemporary restaurant in Los Gatos,” said Nelson. “You walk around that bar at that time of night and it was all the brightest and the best of Los Gatos young people. Then Jerry Rice showed up around midnight, it was this kind of celebrity-laden thing. As an artist I loved the contrast, because you have all this civility, then you have this lingerie model in the background.”
Nelson says that she hopes the works shown at the Peabody Fine Art Gallery next Monday impact people in unexpected ways.
“I’m really interested in seeing how people respond,” said Nelson. “I want people to go ‘wow,’ or I want people to go ‘yikes.’ I wanted to do something that really makes an impression.”
The public is invited to meet Riki R. Nelson on July 20 from 10am-6pm as she hangs her works at the Peabody Fine Art Gallery, located at 11 N. Santa Cruz Ave. in Los Gatos. She will also be displaying and selling her paintings at Jazz on the Plazz on July 22. The exhibit will remain on display until August 3, 2009. For more information, visit http://www.peabodyfineart.com or http://www.riki-arts.com.
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