Sands of Time

Yesterday I had the good fortune of attending the opening of Sands of Time, the newest exhibition by my friend John Nieland. John is a painter, a musician, and perhaps more than anything else, an artist of life itself. He is one of those rare people who do not merely make art, but who seem to inhabit it.
John has recently walked through the difficult landscape of cancer and found his way back toward painting. Watching that journey return to color and canvas feels meaningful. Sands of Time is therefore more than an exhibition. It feels like a turning of the tide.
The evening itself became its own small artwork. Somewhere during the event I spontaneously offered to write a poem for anyone who approached me. Around fifteen people took me up on it. Fifteen small encounters, fifteen tiny windows into lives. A strange and lovely exercise in listening.
But the exhibition was about much more than viewing paintings on walls. It was a journey through John’s life and artistic path, filled with works, photographs, and traces of earlier exhibitions and collaborations. What struck me most was something I have always seen in John: he rarely creates alone.
His collaborations stretch across borders and disciplines. Photographers, painters, poets, musicians, friends. Ibiza, Japan, the Netherlands. John moves through people and places as if collecting sparks for a campfire. He seems to understand something many artists eventually discover: art breathes differently when shared.
One of the most moving aspects of Sands of Time is that some of the new works literally stand upon older ones. John painted over earlier paintings, using them as foundations for something new. There is something quietly profound in that. Nothing is discarded. The past does not disappear. It becomes sediment beneath a fresh layer of sky.
He also hopes these works will find homes, and not hidden vaults. He wants them to enter society, to hang in kitchens, bedrooms, living rooms, and spaces where life unfolds. Art should travel into people’s lives and continue its conversation there.
The evening included a beautiful performance by his daughter, and reflections by a German friend, collector, and organizer of exhibitions. Together they formed part of a wider portrait of John: artist, father, friend, collaborator.
It is an honor to know John. He is one of those people who says what he does and does what he says. That combination is rarer than gold leaf on canvas.

John, I wish you all the beauty with your new love, with your daughter and son, and with the paths still unfolding ahead of you.
I suspect your paintings will eventually not only live in my living room or bedroom. They already occupy a place elsewhere.
In the quieter gallery of the heart.

Thank you, John Nieland, for being there.
Brazos.