In a dark room, mist surrounds you, wisping into visible forms—a fractured tunnel generated by projected light. Behind you, a white curve and a white line on a black wall oscillate in form, producing a simple but pleasing effect. The tunnel and the shapes are the same—a stunning trick of light enveloping you.
The light-and-form installation “Swell,” by Anthony McCall—a New York-based artist who has been exhibiting light installations at major museums since the early 1970s—is engrossing, thoughtful and engulfing. Guests of the Nevada Museum of Art should endeavor to experience it. It’s a work of elegant simplicity with which anyone would struggle to find fault.
However, the context for the presence of “Swell” is rickety, at best. The museum has utilized much of its third-floor exhibition space (a portion of it is blocked off due to ongoing construction of a new wing) to feature Deep Time: Sea Dragons of Nevada, an interactive presentation of the ichthyosaur—the state fossil—and its lengthy history as a regional paleontological fixation. The ichthyosaur was an enormous marine reptile that thrived in the vast, inland sea that covered Nevada a few hundred million years ago.
Multiple preserved fossils are presented in a pastiche of elements from their natural state—laid on the floor, surrounded by well-sifted sand, producing mounds reminiscent of a paleontological excavation site. Pony walls are shaped like mountains, with all of the requisite info dumps, small paintings, photographs and illustrations relating to discoveries and excavations of the celebrated water lizard, from the 1800s to the present day. A design critique: Some of the mountains are made of unfinished composite boards with stock numbers and branding logos still visible. Though seemingly intentional, they provide the display’s most glaring, obtuse aspect.
At the entrance to the exhibition, exceptional work by Elaine Parks, one of Nevada’s finest ceramicists, awaits deep scrutiny. “Fossilia” is a collection of ambitiously tall columns that writhe like pods of previously unimagined oceanic life forms. Details in dimples, glaze and texture form a display of bio-abstraction that suits both the maritime nature of the exhibition and the arid locations of the fossils’ excavation.
Other art that peppers the exhibition is primarily historical—like paintings and illustrations of miners in Berlin, now a ghost town, and renderings of the ichthyosaur in different modalities. The imagery ranges from cerebral to commercial. Seeing early 20th-century illustrations depicting the creatures in almost sci-fi habitats, drawn for chocolate and canned-meat packaging, is deeply satisfying, and a maquette of the dark gray ichthyosaur copied from the 1957 relief sculpture/mural at Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park is gorgeous.
The most dominant work of art is a life-size wall projection of the ichthyosaur itself, with a lavish soundscape created by University of Nevada, Reno, music professor Jean-Paul Perrotte. It is quite captivating as a point of attention and lends the entire gallery a mood of submerged tension.
There is a delightful side exhibition featuring glass case upon glass case of prehistoric creature toys, collected by the late Northern California farmer and artist Jack Arata. The collection made the dino-obsessed 8-year-old that lives inside of me giggle with glee, and it’s paired with an excellent explainer of how artists have been critical in the development of visualizing prehistoric worlds that can never be captured on film.
Overall, Deep Time is a great exhibition that would fold perfectly into any world-class museum. Still, there is an elephant to address in the room. The history buff, biology lover, paleontology kid and education advocate in me recognize the excellent work done in Deep Time. The hungry arts writer, on the other hand, has a complaint: Deep Time would be a wonderful showing in a natural history museum, or at either of the Nevada State Museum’s locations—Carson City or Las Vegas. I must return to the topic of “Swell” here, because, despite its genius, it feels like a sideline to the exhibition that doesn’t quite fit its surroundings. A work like “Swell” would be better served against work by some of the major 20th-century century artists who also used light as a medium—like James Turrell or Dan Flavin—in dialogue with works that speak the same language, rather than as loose fodder for a time-travel fantasy.
In a state that has few exhibition spaces for art of the caliber the Nevada Museum of Art, it feels like a disservice that so much space and time—a full year and a half—are dedicated to a subject that, although appropriate and interesting, denies us a major showing of international fine art, before the rollout of whatever major new collections and/or exhibitions that come with the completion of the expanded museum.
Deep Time: Sea Dragons of Nevada is on view at the Nevada Museum of Art through Jan. 11, 2026. The museum is hosting several exhibition-related events, including “Turning Pages Book Club: Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier” on Wednesday, Nov. 20. For details, visit nevadaart.org.
This article was produced by Double Scoop, Nevada’s source for visual arts news. Learn more at DoubleScoop.art.