After a lifetime of studying and practicing art, two artists came together to share the same creative path. Laura Nisita and Joyce Bailey met as neighbors while living in Estero. A friendship budded at social gatherings and dinners and then formed around their mutual love of art. Both women share a lifetime of experience as practicing artists. Living only one block apart, the two were often found together visiting in their top-floor studios. Like artists in a Greenwich Village garret or Paris atelier, their conversations centered around all aspects of making art as well as art history and the work of the great artists. Although they have each moved away from their old neighborhood, they continue to share a path to creativity.

This joint exhibit shows two different approaches to rendering reality in a work of art. Nisita usually paints from a life form. She uses her extraordinary skill to render the effects of light, color, shadow, surface and reflection in her paintings. She has been referred to as a “Super-Realist” by art critics. Bailey presents a reality that usually goes unseen. She invites the viewer to see the subject through a change in scale and color palette. Tiny tillandsias (a genus of plants) are enlarged on a grid scale to 120 times their actual size. In Bailey’s paintings unremarkable forms are made significant through changes in scale and color palette.

Joyce Waddell Bailey wishes to thank the Marcus Jansen Foundation Fund/Collaboratory Fort Myers for grant support.