Nellie King Solomon makes paintings that interrogate painting. She is asking materials what they want to be. Solomon is interested in what painting means and how it can be used to explore multiple avenues of inquiry simultaneously.

“I make Zen Pop paintings In Pursuit of the Blob”. Works are both about the act of painting, and her experience of great western landscapes, interior and exterior terrains, and the shock of unabsorbed events. She works reductively to communicate the power of an experience rather than narrate it. Architecture and Supergraphics laid a foundation for her work.

Having studied architecture at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York, she holds a BA in Art from University of California Santa Cruz, and an MFA from California College of the Arts. She taught at Stanford University and California College of the Arts. Solomon has worked as an artist assistant to David Ireland, and in architectural restorationon the Palazzo St Polo in Venice. She lived in Paris, Venice, Barcelona, and New York City before returning to California.

Solomon’s work has received extensive critical acclaim, and been featured in Art in America, Huffington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Art Practical, Wallpaper, Harvard Review, ArtBlitzLA, Zyzzyva, NYTheatre, and Architectural Digest, among other publications.

She has exhibited at The Berkeley Art Museum Pacific Film Archive, Crocker Art Museum, Bolinas Museum, Brian Gross Fine Art, Braunstein/Quay, The Battery,Ochi Projects LA, Ochi Gallery Sun Valley, N’Namdi Contemporary in Chicago, Detroit, and Miami. Her work is collected by Steve Wynn, Blue Shield, Visa, Yves Béhar, Sabrina Buell, and The Berkeley Art Museum.

While Solomon’s studio life can be esoteric, her home life is bucolic. A longtime surfer at The Patch in Bolinas, she lives in a cottage with her daughter and Cannoli the bunny.