Review: Jill Nathanson Chromatic Phrases exhibition at the VB Museum of Art

Milt Thomas

The latest exhibition at Vero Beach Museum of Art is Jill Nathanson: Chromatic Phrases. Chromatic is a term typically associated with music, not art, but as Chief Curator Caitlin Swindell, explains, “Chromatic Phrases draws on the musical analogy to describe the unfolding visual experience across the surface of each painting.”

Unlike traditional art, Chromatic Phrases is all about color and how these colors interact with each other. As Swindell describes, “Each color is like a string on a stringed instrument.”

Jill Nathanson, Muscle Memory, 2021. Acrylic, polymers, and oil on panel, 38½ x 74 inches. © Jill Nathanson. Image courtesy of Berry Campbell, New York.

One of the artist’s 20 works selected for this exhibition is entitled Muscle Memory. At first glance, it seems like simple swaths of color – like individual strings, but the longer you look at it up close, you gradually realize it is more like a symphony of color.

Nathanson’s abstract works are the result of her early immersion in the color field painting of the 1960s and 1970s. Color field painting is an abstract art style that features large canvases covered in flat, solid areas of single colors. Instead of showing objects or dramatic brush strokes, the art makes color itself the main subject. According to Nathanson, “My aim is that people will look at color and feel something.”

Nathanson grew up in a musical household; her mother was a classical pianist. “She encouraged me in my pursuit of art. I was accepted to Bennington College in Vermont, which was a center of color field artists. It was the only college I applied to.”

After completing her BA at Bennington, she went on to earn a Master of Fine Arts degree from Hunter College in New York City.

Jill Nathanson, Ladder: May, 2025. Acrylic, polymers, and oil on panel 66¾ x 48¼ inches. © Jill Nathanson. Image courtesy of Berry Campbell, New York.

To achieve the result she seeks, Nathanson creates small studies with shapes cut from color gels. She then duplicates those studies on a large wood panel using a special acrylic paint, each color mixed to her specifications. The paint is then poured onto the surface – no paintbrushes, pallet knives or other tools are involved.

Come to the Museum and experience Jill Nathanson’s unique and absorbing exhibition, Jill Nathanson: Chromatic Phrases. It is available exclusively at the Vero Beach Museum of Art through February 7, 2027. For more information the Museum can be reached at vbmuseum.org or (772) 231-0707.