NICE 'N EASY
Walgreens Windows
Locally based artist-duo Nice’n Easy present two installations for the Walgreens Windows project space on the corner of 23rd Street and Collins Avenue.
Ideal Display is a site-specific installation that examines exploited notions of romance, escape, identity, and consumer culture. Drawing upon the mythological story of Narcissus as well as Jaques Lacan’s “mirror stage,” Nice’n Easy considers place and context of the Walgreens storefront on South Beach for the production of their series of fragmented self-portraits. By overlaying photographic self-portraits with chosen products, texts and visual motifs, Nice’n Easy creates associations that blur the line between art and commodity, artwork and artist and perception and reality.
The Come Down functions as a counter-point installation to Ideal Display on view in the East-facing window. The repetition of the inflatable dolphin is synonymous with the use of water as motif in Nice’n Easy’s larger body of work. The dolphin is a complex symbol that is expansively idealized. By slowly deflating the dolphin as it descends through the space it is relieved of expectation and idealization.
Nice’n Easy is a collaborative endeavor by artists Allison Matherly and Jeffrey Noble. Focused on creating immersive mixed media installations, Nice’n Easy develops a visually cohesive subtropical vernacular with their material choices and use of repeated motifs. Often referencing themes of self-help, recovery and interpersonal dependency, their fabricated environments utilize romantic tropes to enhance the collective emotive truisms between participants and create a platform for intimate exchange.
