Nicholas Cueva at MEN Gallery

In 2017, Nicholas Cueva began a series of paintings depicting early-morning surfers in the waters of Southern California. Each painting is a meditation on patience represented in the time spent waiting for waves. Rendered on a variety of coarse fabrics, recognizable images of human bodies and surfboards in the water pass in and out of view, subsumed by the water and mists which are created by the textures of the painted surfaces themselves.

Nicholas Cueva was born in Dana Point California in 1983. He received his MFA from SAIC in 2011, and has lived in New York since. This is his first solo show in Manhattan. His recent solo in 2017 at Five Myles was on Jerry Saltz list of “10 Achievements of 2017”. His curation and involvement in the New York area art scene, most notably with the Brooklyn gallery, Underdonk, fuels a scene of incredibly talented artists from whom he draws inspiration.