arts & entertainment

Beginning July 25, more than 20 recent works by artist Jill Nathanson will be on view in the original exhibition Jill Nathanson: Chromatic Phrases, exclusively at the Vero Beach Museum of Art (VBMA) through February 7, 2027. Nathanson, whose abstract paintings are informed by her early immersion in Color Field painting of the 1960s and 1970s, extends this lineage through a sustained exploration of color as an experiential phenomenon. In her work, color does not remain fixed or purely descriptive; it suggests movement as it is shaped by the interaction of light and perception. 

“The exhibition title Chromatic Phrases draws on a musical analogy to evoke the unfolding of visual experience across the surface of each painting,” explains VBMA Chief Curator Caitlin Swindell. “Like a musical phrase, understood as a complete and expressive unit, each composition develops through relationships between colors as they are perceived over time.”

As viewers move through the exhibition, their experience may evolve from an immediate visual response and an intuitive sense of how to read the colors toward the gradual recognition of more subtle optical and spatial effects that Nathanson creates.

“The colors are like strings in a string instrument—a melody on one string implicitly activates the harmonic space of the others, even if they are not played directly,” continues Swindell. “Nathanson’s aim is that people will look at color and feel something.” 

The artist developed a concept of “Color Desire,” a system of incompleteness and interdependence that shapes how pure colors relate to one another within her paintings. Nathanson explains, “The colors in the painting call forth one another, and they need each other across the painting.” More than creating an “image,” Nathanson seeks to generate force through the sequencing of color. 

Chromatic Phrases is curated by Chief Curator Caitlin Swindell and organized by the Vero Beach Museum of Art. The exhibition will open in both the Schumann and Titelman galleries on July 25, 2026, then will transition to just one, the Schumann Gallery, on October 26, 2026. The exhibition is open through February 7, 2027.

All works on view are loans courtesy of the artist and Berry Campbell Gallery, New York. A forthcoming catalog on Nathanson’s recent work will feature an essay by Karen Wilkin.

Jill Nathanson: Chromatic Phrases is generously supported by: 

Presenting Sponsors: 

The Yela “Peter” and Derek Fowler Endowment for Acquisitions and Exhibitions

Patricia M. Patten Endowment

Estate of Glee and Robert Ries Endowment

Exhibition Sponsor: 

Friends of the VBMA Endowment