A WHIMSICAL ADDITION
In a new art exhibit that could have been inspired by a Dr. Seuss book, children can sit in a bathtub beneath pouring thunderclouds, handle a 6-foot-wide paint roller and manipulate a maze of colorful traffic cones on the “woodle wall.”
The local artist behind the show, Shelbi Nicole, has been tapped by NASA, Super Bowl LI, Vans, Mini Cooper and the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo for her graphic shapes that look like magnified amoebas, germs and other scientific materials. Those same blobs crawl up walls and morph into interactive rooms at “The Whimsy World,” her 5,000square-foot art show that opened downtown this week.
“Everything at ‘The Whimsy World’ is huge,” says Nicole, describing vibrant, 8-foot-tall furry trees and daisies growing from the ground in an area she calls the whimsy forest. The flower stems are made from chicken wire, a material she chose so it would cast funky shadows on the ground.
“It’s so playful and very colorful,” she says. “The ultimate kids’ land.”
Kids can lie under a massive pink piggy bank suspended from the ceiling or climb on a 12-foottall chair painting with black and white shapes that spill onto the floor, an effect that tricks the eye and makes the chair appear to be sprouting from the wall.
Nearby, guests can hold a massive paint roller, made from the innards of a mattress, and pretend to be painting one of Nicole’s oversized murals.
Beyoncé and beyond
There are adult photo ops, too, including “The Beyoncé Bathroom,” plastered with black-andwhite decals of the pop singer. Selfie-ready mirrors are covered with her famous quotes. Nicole says her mostly female team chose an homage to the celebrity because she’s “the epitome of girl power.”
In other parts of the gallery, temporary walls create stalls that are meant to be booths for selfies, where one can toss confetti in front of a backdrop of red hearts or take a video in a pink pompom land.
Clear Christmas ornaments, paper lanterns, Hawaiian leis and balloons are used to create threedimensional versions of the scientific shapes Nicole says she began painting the first time she worked with NASA and saw cells magnified under a microscope at the facility.
She’s since worked with NASA on other projects, including producing a painting that was digitized and appears inside the TESS satellite currently orbiting Earth on a two-year mission.
No rain, no gain
Some kids will be able to identify shapes covering the floor and walls from biology, but they’ll all gravitate to the rain cloud, Nicole says.
She asked local artist Mike Kirby to make a chaise lounge chair — he did so by sawing a 300-pound antique clawfoot tub in half — that allows guests to lie back and look up at clouds above. Kirby used LED strips, timed Philips Hue lights, strobes and music to create the effect of a rainstorm.
From there, artist Gabrielle Mika added antique chandelier beads that seem to shower the person below, “in hopes the light from the cloud would scatter rainbows below and capture the eye like a rainstorm does,” Mika says.
Mika likens the rainy-day bathtub room and the rest of the exhibit to a carnival fun house — a “visually stimulating” art show designed to be interactive rather than pretentious or stuffy. Nicole agrees.
“I personally have been kind of bored with traditional art shows where you’re scared to ask the pricing or touch the art,” says Nicole, who will take the show to Austin next and plans to tour it around the country. “I wanted a completely different energy.”