Nicholas Gerson: 𝙒𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝘾𝙪𝙩 𝘿𝙤𝙬𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙈𝙖𝙜𝙣𝙤𝙡𝙞𝙖

Art Cake, 2nd Floor #10

February 13-25, 2026 Opening Reception: February 13, 6-8PM

Hours: Sunday through Tuesday 12-6PM and by appointment: 202 368-1617

The exhibition takes its title from a southern magnolia that grew in the yard of the artist’s childhood home. The expression “what cut down the magnolia” spawns from the death of that tree and the deaths of Gerson’s grandmother and father. The paintings are a longing to return, a hope that time is cyclical.

This is the general mental state the artist has worked in the past decade. Trusting paint to carve meaning from fragments of memory, speculations, paranoias, dreams, and sadnesses. The artist uses paint as a medium to process singular moments rooted in emotional experience.

“The Bold Arrow of Time,” one of the earliest works in the show, prods at the slippage between restrained and unrestrained, formed and formless, past and present, the linearity of the conscious realm and the unconscious as timeless as death.

“City Scene” and “Park Scene” rely on sketches by Gerson’s grandmother, Betty, the first painter the artist knew. These paintings stand in opposition to the passage and interference of time.

Silhouettes of figures occupy many of Gerson’s paintings symbolizing absence and loss. Celestial bodies stand as constants amongst change. The act of painting affirms life.