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(LINCROFT, NJ) -- Monmouth Museum, Nilson Gallery announces the opening of Harmony, Balance & Symmetry, a kaleidoscopic digital art exhibition featuring the work of north New Jersey, New York and Long Beach Island-based artist Carol Nussbaum. The show will be on display from April 15 to June 1, 2025 at the Nilson Gallery at the Monmouth Museum on the campus of Brookdale Community College.
This show features Nussbaum’s original photographs, inviting viewers to view familiar objects like seashells, folded papers, or children’s toys, in a novel way, through her mandala shaped or circular designed fine art. Each image offers the eye an adventure in harmony, balance, depth, contrast and symmetry. Found in every culture and faith, a mandala is structured around a unifying center as with Nussbaum’s kaleidoscope-like creations.
Nussbaum’s 30 years of graphic design experience and her 15 years of advertising background provided the perfect segue for her as she began to transform her original photographs into digital art. “What’s seen with the eye can, with love and care, be transformed to suggest a period of time or even a movement in the art world,” Nussbaum said. She added, “Weaving elements of my travel photographs or even a trip to a toy store into an intricate mandala brings a new mood to the experience.”
Paper Folds Mandala
Her art is part of her search for balance and harmony in life.
“Now more than ever, it is a reaction to the chaos and conflict of today’s world,” she said. “Balance vs. conflict, symmetry vs. chaos, harmony vs. discord, and the work that results hopefully offers the eye and the mind of my audience a healthy and beautiful respite.”
The opening reception on Sunday, April 27th from 4:00pm to 6:00pm is free and open to the public. Attendees can meet the artist, enjoy refreshments and talk about the art process of these highly-layered images.
Nilson Gallery at the Monmouth Museum is located on the campus of Brookdale Community College (765 Newman Springs Road) in Lincroft, New Jersey.
Carol Nussbaum is a digital photographer who “paints” with her photographed images creating circular shaped mandalas while maintaining color, line, and form. Nussbaum attended Skidmore College where she studied both fine art and photography. She graduated with honors and moved to New York City, where she won awards for print and television commercials as an art director in the advertising world. Art has always been central to Nussbaum’s core. When her children were small, it was as if no single medium of art could contain her. Creative roles in her career have included children’s book illustrator, mural painter, custom stationery designer, and magazine artist–-to name a few.
The Monmouth Museum is an independent, 501(c)3 non-profit organization established in 1963 as the result of a needs assessment conducted by the Junior League of Monmouth County. Until 1973, exhibitions were housed in storefronts and other available temporary spaces. A permanent home for the Museum was built in 1974 on the Brookdale Community College campus, on a two acre site leased from the College.
