AUGUST 5 - SEPTEMBER 12, 2026

SOCO Gallery is pleased to present Auric, Liz Nielsen’s fifth solo exhibition with the gallery, opening August 5, 2026. The exhibition features a new body of unique chromogenic photograms and light paintings that move between abstraction and landscape in which luminous geometric forms, mountains, moons, and shifting atmospheres emerge entirely through recorded light.  The gallery will host a public  reception with the artist on Wednesday, August 5 from 6-8 PM. 

Working in total darkness without a camera, Nielsen constructs each image directly onto light sensitive material through an intensive analog process she describes as both performance and invention. Colored light is strategically blocked, released, layered, and counted through dozens of exposures before the works are processed through traditional color chemistry. Each work is entirely unique with no negatives and means of reproduction.

Across Auric, light serves simultaneously as material and subject. Nielsen approaches light as a “tangible intangible,” something measurable and physical, yet impossible to fully hold. The resulting works exist between states: abstract and representational, cosmic and earthly, intimate and monumental. This tension between control and unpredictability lies at the core of Nielsen’s practice. While each composition is carefully orchestrated through precise calculations of exposure, color, and duration, the behavior of light itself resists complete mastery. Subtle shifts emerge throughout the process, allowing chance and material interaction to play an active role in the final composition. Rather than depicting a fixed scene, the works record an event—an accumulation of gestures, decisions, and luminous encounters that unfold over time.

In works such as Mountain Glow, Snowy Mountains, and Rainbow Sky, landscapes appear suspended in a mutable condition, as though caught between a memory, dream, and geological transformation. Elsewhere, smaller works including Kissing You, Leaning In, and Floating Shapes suggest auric bodies or energetic encounters, where geometry begins to feel strangely sentient and emotionally charged. Nothing remains fully fixed in time or space: edges slip, forms hover, and horizons bend. 

Researching light as both scientific phenomenon and poetic force, Nielsen continues her ongoing dialogue between photography, painting, and perception. In Auric, light becomes not simply a tool for seeing, but a living structure through which transformation, instability, and connection are made visible. Nielsen’s images evoke places that feel simultaneously remembered and unknown, reflecting a world already in motion beneath our feet.

Liz Nielsen (b.1976, North Carolina)

Liz Nielsen received her MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL; her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL; and her BA from Seattle University, Seattle, WA. Recent solo exhibitions include Liz Nielsen, Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY; Made in the Dark, Hexton Gallery, Aspen, CO; She LOVES Me…, SOCO Gallery, Charlotte, NC; Romanticist, Danziger Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Edge of Forever, Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY; Apparitions, Black Box Projects, London, United Kingdom; Electric Romance, 12.26 Gallery, Dallas, TX; I Like to Imagine You're in a Place Like This, Over the Influence, Los Angeles, CA; Rolling Aura, David B. Smith Gallery, Denver, CO; and Spooky Action, Art Austerlitz, Austerlitz, NY.

Nielsen's work is currently featured in Manifestations of the Voyage, a large-scale public installation at Grand Central Madison in New York City. Her photograms have been featured at international art fairs including Paris Photo, Photo London, and Unseen Amsterdam. A recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant, Nielsen's work has been reviewed in Artforum, The New Yorker, The Guardian, The Financial Times, LensCulture, Vogue UK, and FOAM Magazine, among others. The artist lives and works in New York's Hudson Valley.