Nicole Duennebier is one of the most sumptuous painters around. Her new paintings evoke the elegance of 16th century Dutch still-lifes and the fecundity of French rococo garden scenes. But there’s something strange going on in her landscapes and still-lifes. Like the piles of meat at the center of some of the scenes—dripping with ooze.

“I definitely want it to be pulling out desire through things that are repellant,” says the Malden painter whose exhibition “View into the Fertile Country” begins with a reception from 5 to 7 this evening, May 19, at 13 Forest Gallery in Arlington and continues to July 13. “Pushing people to find something attractive that they wouldn’t normally is always something I’m working towards. I think artists are always looking for something people haven’t found beautiful yet.”

Nicole Duennebier in her studio in Malden, May 12, 2018. (Greg Cook)
Nicole Duennebier in her studio in Malden, May 12, 2018. (Greg Cook)

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Duennebier grew up in East Hampton, Connecticut, earned her bachelor of fine arts degree from the Maine College of Art in Portland in 2005, moved to Boston in 2008, and now works as a receptionist for the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce—where she brought paint pens, black paint and brown paper to sketch some of the drawings in the show during lunch breaks. She sometimes collaborates with her younger sister Caitlin Duennebier, whose cartoony style stands in contrast to Nicole’s old master chiaroscuros. Duennebier admits to “an incredible devotion to them [old master paintings] in some way, an embarrassing devotion.”

Nicole Duennebier, "Still Life with Grapes and Black Mold," acrylic on panel.
Nicole Duennebier, “Still Life with Grapes and Black Mold,” acrylic on panel.

Duennebier’s earlier paintings often seemed to look underwater—tracing back to her interest in the coastal ecosystems of Maine. They suggested curling ribbon lines, the rippled fabric of old time collars, sea anemones and urchins, jellyfish, mushrooms and shelf molds, swarms of fish eggs or pearls or grapes. Everything appeared heaped up like coral reefs or composting middens, emerging from darkness evoking a cave or the cosmic void or under the sea, beautiful and yet rife with decay, at once strange and ecstatic.

Nicole Duennebier, "Still Life with Meat Pile," acrylic on panel.
Nicole Duennebier, “Still Life with Meat Pile,” acrylic on panel.

“Still life has always been rot. They’ve always had that fuzz and decay on things. And that’s interesting to paint, too,” Duennebier says. French rococo artists “would use old grottos and decay, use little bits of tarnish and mold in it and that became part of the design. That was something that was in my work, something that you’re programmed to recoil from that is decorative. And, of course, grotesque means grotto-esque.”

In the new show, Duennebier has brightened the surroundings, more directly evoking still-lifes or landscapes populated by gnarled trees. Things turn weird—like some alien energy has taken hold and caused the surroundings to mutate.

To increase the sense of depth and verisimilitude, Duennebier says, “I was making clay sculptures to work from because I thought my paintings were getting very flat.”

Nicole Duennebier, "Folded Landscape At Dusk," acrylic on panel.
Nicole Duennebier, “Folded Landscape At Dusk,” acrylic on panel.

One painting resembles a still-life of meat (“The clay form I had I would grease it down with [mineral] oil so I could see the way the light would shine on it”). Other paintings seem to be landscapes with strange piles of what seem to be meat in the middle. She says, “I didn’t realize the meat looked kind of gross to many people.”

“It’s hard to talk about them as gross when I’ve finished the paintings because you’re so in it,” Duennebier says. “…I still stay fairly pretty on the surface, I think. And I think that comes from not being able to be super cynical about it.”


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Nicole Duennebier, "Landscape with Pink Folds," acrylic on panel.
Nicole Duennebier, “Landscape with Pink Folds,” acrylic on panel.
Nicole Duennebier's studio in Malden, May 12, 2018. (Greg Cook)
Nicole Duennebier’s studio in Malden, May 12, 2018. (Greg Cook)
Nicole Duennebier's studio in Malden, May 12, 2018. (Greg Cook)
Nicole Duennebier’s studio in Malden, May 12, 2018. (Greg Cook)
Categories: Art