Some artists love to leave Easter eggs in their works, tiny imperceivable messages deliberately hidden beyond what the naked eye can see. For artist Nancy Good, whose form of synesthesia allows her to sense vibrations and convert them into her art, the entire world is one big Easter egg. In her new exhibition, From What to My Wondering Eyes Do Appear? at Whitney Library, Good invites us to experience the beauty of our interconnectedness through a vibrant new lens.
“It’s always about, for me, the sharing of the admission that I will never know it all. I will never see it all. And I need to remember to always look at something from a new perspective, in a new light. We often forget that,” Good says. “We hold fast to our opinions of what we know or what we think we know, without ever going beyond that. So, I remember how I used to learn as a young person, and I still learn today, is through play.”
Good’s sense of play drove her to create something well beyond what the eye can see. On the surface, her pieces appear as colorful, two-dimensional biological forms distilled into their most primal, cellular state. But when I don a pair of color-refracting glasses, objects become closer than they appear. Unseen colors leap out into the foreground, electric and prominent. New shapes and forms, once buried beneath the layers, now emerge as I sweep a UV flashlight over the canvas, the trick of the light mingling with UV pigments to mimic the “amplified depth” Good experiences on a daily basis. You want to reach out and touch what’s seemingly, to the average person, not there.
“I realized sometimes we approach art often like we approach everything very fast, [like] streaming,” Good says. “Whereas this technique and this approach allows people to take some time, and they want to take some time because we’re discovering things. We’re trying to figure out ‘Wait a minute. How is that happening?’”
Once you get past the novelty, Good hopes the real Easter egg, the real message, becomes clear. We must look beyond ourselves and beyond the first layers to find connection and commonality. Because if not? The consequences could be dire.
“The first consequence is our lives are less full, and we then create and sustain barriers that keep others from knowing us, which then, if we can’t know someone or know ourselves, how do we love ourselves or let someone else love us?” she says.
Good’s currently working on another large-scale piece called “Big Love” in a residency studio with the First Friday Foundation. Creating with the support of the foundation has been freeing for Good, who was forced to close her Core Contemporary gallery in 2024. She’s also able to still mentor other artists along the way. On February 10, she’ll host an artist talk and reception at Whitney Library, where she looks forward to seeing joy on visitors’ faces as they react and embrace the playfulness of her art.
“It’s a good feeling to bring someone joy. I mean it just is,” she says. “I try to make sure that is part of the mission of a gallery or the studio. I’m experiencing joy, so why can’t I share it?”
FROM WHAT TO MY WoNDERING EYES DO APPEAR? Thru February 24, Monday–Thursday, 10 a.m.-8 p.m.; Friday–Sunday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Whitney Library, thelibrarydistrict.org.
Click HERE to subscribe for free to the Weekly Fix, the digital edition of Las Vegas Weekly! Stay up to date with the latest on Las Vegas concerts, shows, restaurants, bars and more, sent directly to your inbox!
