But just as Wittenberg’s DP hero Ballhaus went for image over narrative, she eschews a prescriptive reading of her art. Think of the content, not the subject matter. She calls herself an intuitive artist rather than one who responds to political or linguistic inclinations. “I realized, I’m really kind of a romantic painter,” she reflects.
Wittenberg resists trends. As an artist she is independent, and with experience she has become more trusting of her instincts. “I never wanted to make the paintings everyone else was making,” she told Earnest for the monograph. A landscape painting—to be even more precise, a landscape painting of Maine, a most painterly of places—is not novel, but the unabashed approach she takes sets her apart from the long lineage of those who have worked to document its rugged beauty.
It’s a big year for Wittenberg. Preceding her Acquavella presentation—her first since officially joining the gallery’s roster—were three other shows in 2025 (two in Maine and one in Paris), plus the release of her monograph. In September it was announced that a new LA restaurant from Dior will feature artwork by Wittenberg. Amid the planning stages and the openings, she finds time to keep painting. An artist’s artist, she doesn’t stay away from the studio for long. There’s a zeal to the work, like she can’t help but make it.
This shows up mostly in the boundlessness of the edges—or really, the lack of edges. There is no containing these pictures, and more than anything that is what unites them. “I guess that’s the thing I’m after,” she says. “With this new work, it’s like it moves from sensation to sensation, emotion to emotion, subject matter to subject matter. But the way it’s painted, the energy of the painting is the constant force.”
“Nicole Wittenberg: All the Way” is on view from October 16 to December 5, 2025.
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