Nous Voyons la Vie en Rose by Katherine Page
We Are Nice’n Easy is a collaborative duo featuring artists Allison Matherly and Jeffrey Noble. The husband-and-wife team works across a range of media, including immersive installations, indoor and public sculpture, murals, and paintings. Through their artistic practice, Matherly and Noble explore themes of intimacy, renewal, and profound moments of connection, all within a broader discourse on interpersonal relationships and mental and spiritual well-being. In their site-specific installation, ALL WET ON A PINK CLOUD WEARING ROSE COLORED GLASSES (2026), We Are Nice’n Easy create an effervescent, rosy space rich in metaphor that bridges interior and exterior worlds and engages all of the viewer’s senses, prompting reflection on the passage of time, duality, care, vulnerability, and love.
To introduce the viewer to their installation, We Are Nice’n Easy have given the space a title loaded with double entendre. ALL WET ON A PINK CLOUD WEARING ROSE COLORED GLASSES (2026) alludes to states of soaking and arousal, periods of hope and precarious euphoria, as well as adoring and naïve points of view. Each idiom is a clue that invites examination of two sides of the same coin and centers the mind and body comfortably within a space that is both intimate and voyeuristic, personal and public.
As the viewer enters the installation, their senses are immersed in a relaxed space of generative, blushing tones against the backdrop of Lake Estelle, where floor-to-ceiling pink-hued windows and a luxurious, rosy carpet encircle a central tableau. Sight is engaged through the otherworldly pink glow. We are meant to hear the birds flocking on the lake just beyond the museum. We can smell, as well as imagine the taste and touch, of the creamy figures before us, saturated with rose oil.
Matherly and Noble erect a sensuously curving wall of breeze-blocks atop a shag rug at the center of the ethereal gallery, establishing a liminal space of transition between openness and seclusion, both within the constructed world and within one’s mind. The custom breeze-blocks, with their infinitely repeating pattern, separate two figures modeled in soap from the artists’ own forms, which are recomposed in introspection on tiled benches grouted in pink. The medium serves as a record of the body, which gradually erodes through daily acts of gentleness and routine, leaving a physical impression of the other spouse on the first’s replica. The cast forms, softened over time by their counterparts; bodies, enable the artists to work through physicality and metaphor, cleansing themselves as they wash away and reshape the other’s sharp contours. The process of navigating these feelings of tenderness and yearning through the ritual-like motion is juxtaposed with insecurity and tension that is heightened by the wall’s division.
From above, the arrangement embodies the Yin-Yang symbol, reflecting the idea that the swirling energies of opposing restorative (feminine) and forceful (masculine) forces continuously alter and influence one another. The blocks are a prominent feature of the architecture of tropical South Floridian homes, where cool wind, bright light, and the sounds of the natural world can flow through decorative openings in the concrete, creating a visual retreat. In this installation, they provide space for a guarded, balanced exchange of energy and communication, like an open-air confessional.
The customized design of the breeze-blocks echoes the form of glittering ripples refracted by the sun’s light through a shifting pool of water. This further resonates in the artists’ rose-gold mirrored works. The reflective, interconnected surfaces here, like puzzle pieces or the winding boundaries of countries shaped by flowing rivers, reinforce the masculine and feminine division of space in their messaging while placing the viewer within the environment itself. We are all a part of the rosy life We Are Nice’n Easy have conceived, thorns and all.
