SANCTUARY
SARA GALLAGHER & WILLIAM NICHOLS
SANCTUARY
SARA GALLAGHER & WILLIAM NICHOLS
CK CONTEMPORARY
Sanctuary SANCTUARY brings together the large-scale landscape paintings of William Nichols and the emotionally charged pencil and pastel drawings of Sara Gallagher in an exhibition exploring nature as a site of refuge, restoration, and human connection. For more than five decades, Nichols has approached the landscape not simply as a subject to be represented and admired, but as an experience to be entered. Working from observation and often prioritizing a more raw version of nature, he creates immersive images in which dense foliage, shifting light, and gestural surfaces replace the traditional distance of the landscape view. Horizons disappear, contextual clues recede, and the viewer is drawn into an intimate world that feels like a portal to another place. His paintings occupy a compelling space between realism and abstraction, inviting us to feel the presence of nature rather than merely look at it. Complementing Nichols’s expansive, enveloping landscapes, Sara Gallagher’s drawings turn inward. Through her distinctive practice of “emotional realism,” Gallagher gives visible form to the psychological and bodily experience of seeking comfort in the natural world. Her soft, meticulously rendered, and sometimes surreal figures personify emotions that are often difficult to articulate, creating space for vulnerability, recognition, and healing. Together, these artists propose nature as more than a backdrop. It becomes an active participant in the human experience. Nichols immerses us in the physical density of the landscape; Gallagher reveals the inner states that such immersion can awaken. Their works meet at the threshold between external environment and internal feeling. Sanctuary invites viewers to slow down, attend to the world around them, and consider how encounters with nature can help us reconnect—with ourselves, with one another, and with the possibility of healing. Lauren Ellis, CK Contemporary
Sara Gallagher Listen and She'll Move You PanPastel and graphite on paper 26 x 38 in
William Nichols Hydrangeas, Sturgeon Bay Oil on linen 31.5 x 37.5 in
Sara Gallagher Held PanPastel and graphite on paper 26 x 38 in
William Nichols Wild Prairie Oil on canvas 36 x 52 in
Sara Gallagher An Echo of Becoming PanPastel and graphite on paper 16 x 20 in
William Nichols Yellow Aspens Oil on canvas 28 x 40 in
William Nichols Lilies Oil on canvas 47 x 31 in
William Nichols Poppies Oil on canvas 52 x 63 in
Sara Gallagher The Slow Immerson PanPastel and graphite on paper 38 x 28 in
William Nichols Lily Pond Oil on canvas 46 x 58 in
William Nichols Reflections on a Shallow Stream Watercolor on paper 19 x 27 in
William Nichols Sugar Creek Bridge Oil on canvas 44 x 54 in
Sara Gallagher The Dialogue PanPastel and graphite on paper 26 x 22 in
William Nichols Delphiniums Oil on canvas 45 x 52 in
Sara Gallagher The Calm Cacophony: From the Shore the Depth Beckons PanPastel and graphite on paper 12 x 16 in
Sara Gallagher The Calm Cacophony: I Live my Life in Widening Circles PanPastel and graphite on paper 12 x 16 in
William Nichols Still Water Watercolor on paper 21 x 28 in
Sara Gallagher Presence in the Wild Order PanPastel, graphite, and acrylic gloss medium on paper 18 x 30 in
Sara Gallagher Now With You Graphite on paper 6 x 13 in
William Nichols Quiet Summer Evening Oil on canvas 44 x 58 in
(detail)
William Nichols Pools of Light Oil on canvas 60 x 70 in
William Nichols Natural Dam Watercolor on paper 18.75 x 26.75 in
SARA GALLAGHER (American, born 1990)
Sara Gallagher is an award-winning artist whose work aims to break social taboos around emotional and mental health through mixed-media pastel and graphite drawings, community-based discussions, artist workshops, mentorship programs, and the written word. Her work is best described as “Emotional Realism”: hyperrealistic drawings encapsulating an emotional experience shared through vulnerable conversations. These discussions embrace emotional intimacy and center on topics such as resilience, transition, and connection. Continuing the conversation, each work is paired with a written statement and a question directed at the viewer, inviting them to engage and reflect on their own experiences. Through use of figurative realism, intentional color, and concise compositions, the image personifies emotions in a way that can be familiar and accessible to many. The goal is to create solidarity with others who can relate to the emotional states being depicted, encouraging more transparency, support, and dialogue amongst our peers, partners, families, and communities at large. Select Awards: 17th International ARC Salon, Art Renewal Center, 1st Place Drawing, 2024 MANIFEST International Drawing Annual 15, Manifest Creative Research Gallery and Drawing Center, 3rd Place, 2024 Pastel 100, Artists Network, 3rd Place in Portrait & Figure Category, 2024 Allied Artists of America 111th Annual Exhibition, Allied Artists of America, Jane Peterson Memorial Award Winner, 2024 Pastel 100, Artists Network, 2nd Place Overall, The Award of Excellence, 2023 Almenara Art Prize, Almenara Collection, Best Drawing, 2023 Self Portrait Contest, Jerry’s Artarama, 2nd Place, 2023 John Dalton Art Prize, Kaleido, 1st Grand Prize, 2022 16th International ARC Salon, Art Renewal Center, Winner of the Fine Art Connoisseur Publication Award and the Dual Category Award (Drawing/Figurative); Finalist in the Drawing and Figurative categories, 2022
WILLIAM NICHOLS (American, born 1942)
For centuries, the Western landscape tradition has relied on the horizon line to construct compositions around a distant vista—one that positions the viewer outside of nature as an objective observer. Nichols’s own most meaningful experiences with nature, however, have emerged through immersion: from feeling part of a living world rather than standing apart from it. In response, he deliberately eliminates the horizon in his paintings, seeking to dismantle the distance between viewer and subject. Through an experiential reality grounded in scale, the paintings place the viewer within nature’s architecture, creating a direct intimacy with the natural world and proposing a new way of looking at and engaging with this traditional subject. Although his process begins with photographic data, the resulting canvases become acts of organic abstraction. Dense networks of foliage, water, fractured light, and woven branches function as visual fragments within a larger, interconnected structure. Rather than documenting a specific location, the artist explores the chaotic rhythms, tensions, tactile surfaces, and shifting colors that emerge through the act of painting. The work exists at the boundary between hyper-focused detail and purely gestural expression, mirroring the artist’s own complex response to the natural world. In an era defined by environmental fragmentation, these paintings offer a psychological space of total immersion. By presenting the landscape as an unyielding and enveloping screen of life, Nichols seeks to create a profound sensory encounter with nature’s overwhelming beauty, vitality, and healing characteristics. Nichols's work belongs to the public collections of the Milwaukee Art Museum, Butler Institute of American Art, John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Haggerty Museum, Erie Art Museum, Museum of New Art (MONA), Rahr West Art Museum, Stanford University, and the State of Illinois Governor's Mansion. His work has also been acquired by several prominent corporate and private collections. He has been featured in several art historical surveys of Realism and landscape painting, including Contemporary American Realism Since 1960 (1981), Facing Reality: Twentieth-Century American Realist and Realistic Drawings in Perspective (1986), Spirit of Place: Contemporary Landscape Painting & The American Tradition (1989), The Artist and the American Landscape (1998), Green Woods & Crystal Waters: The American Landscape Tradition (2000).
CK CONTEMPORARY