One of Santa Barbara’s most affable artists has gotten a little catty lately. Brad Nack — who has famously painted more reindeer than is seemingly humanly possible — has turned his brush toward the feline persuasion in a new exhibition called The Cat Room and Other Decorative Splendours, on view at Santa Barbara Community Arts Workshop Friday, September 5, to Tuesday, September 9.
With more than 50 cat-themed paintings ready to adopt, as well as an array of paintings Nack calls “decorative works” — about 50 additional paintings of all sorts of shapes, sizes, and subject matters, this might just be the most comprehensive exhibition of Nack’s work to date.
Why this new feline fascination? “I’ve been doing cats for a long time,” said Nack. “Sort of how I do the reindeer show. Cats are really expressive, and something that cats and reindeer have in common, well that they kind of complement each other, is that cats have whiskers and reindeers have antlers. I think those are really expressive.”