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Nickel’s Worth

Painting is to sculpture as baseball is to basketball. Though trained artists are educated in most media, it doesn’t necessarily follow that excellence in one will translate to the others; same as it is in sports. So the fact that local sculptor Rick Nickel—who has all but mastered the art of ceramics—can also paint, draw and incise his distinct, iconographic images to nearly equal effect…well, it’s kind of like if Michael Jordan had turned out to be a really great baseball player.

Yet even before Sheila Giolitti opened the doors to her new Waterside gallery, Mayer Fine Art, she knew she wanted to give Nickel a solo show and the opportunity to showcase his two-dimensional work. Following up the gallery’s stellar debut—a thrilling group exhibition of Cuban artwork earlier this spring—Love’s Labor expands beyond Nickel’s emblematic sculpture with paintings on canvas, paper, and panels, as well as painted plates and carved vessels.

Patrons and fans will be pleased to see his recognizable style come through in these works. The ODU art professor has crafted an unmistakable identity in the local art scene—he with his glasses, bicycle and shaven head; and his sculptures with their autobiographical storytelling, Biblical references, whimsical, childlike tone and brilliant execution. The 45-piece show certainly continues in that tradition, however, Nickel introduces new themes; a series of panels reflects the desire to build a home and a family, with a certain anxiety, it seems, about conception and childbirth. Here and there are babies, skateboards, skyscrapers. Love’s Labor, for which the show is titled, and Future Norfolk react to the hyper-development of Nickel’s home city, depicting chaotic, jumbled urban scenes.

Though some may argue that with his academic background, Nickel is not truly an Outsider artist. But Giolitti succeeds in proving them wrong with this exhibition, which demonstrates the raw, visceral power of his work. Evoking a wide range of emotions from sadness to silliness, these are pieces that are meant to be owned and revisited, as they slowly reveal details, narratives, and layers of symbolism with each viewing.

Mayer Fine Art continues to solidify its place in the fledgling Norfolk art community with this second exhibition. No doubt Love’s Labor will elevate both its own stature and that of the consummate Rick Nickel to even greater heights.