"Empty yourself and let the universe fill you."
An object is a powerful tool, crucial to communicate ideas, tell a story, and contains layers of information and significance that form our understanding of cultures and history. The stories told through the agency of artifacts are based off our collective consciousness. Much like an anthropologist I arrange and interpret cultural ephemera typically considered unworthy of study and usher it into the realm of fine arts.
The rich heritage of craft in our country is a manifestation of our spirit, history, and imaginative spark as a people. For generations craft has been reinvented by innovative artists who examine, interpret, and execute extraordinary and radical ideas. I continue to find inspiration in the embrace of artistic processes and stimuli that lie outside the art historical canon.
Canvases are a ubiquitous symbol of high art in blue chip galleries. By applying unconventional mediums to these noble substrates such as spray paint, colored fibers, brass objects and crystal beads I create hybrid objects with materials and techniques that are traditionally marginalized under the category of “craft.” I employ unlikely combinations of unsophisticated materials that pry apart the hierarchies of artistic value, such as synthetic polyethylene housewrap, insulation and aluminum foil that come together rebelling against conventional categorization and aesthetic conventions; challenging notions of status, excess, and taste.
My artwork’s feminist grounding explores feminine narratives on the contemporary women’s identities and ideals commonly portrayed within fine art and craft. By exploring historically gendered art, traditions and rituals, my artwork endeavors to examine the nature of our customs and how they affect women. I aspire to create a conversation about what it means to be a modern woman today paralleling the expansion of the art world to include historically marginalized forms of craft, decoration, and abstract patterning associated with femininity and women’s work.
Informed by historical sources as varied as Surrealism, Baroque, Kitsch and Folk art movements the impetus for this work is distilled from my emotions, the metaphysical, nature and cosmic curio. Through my recent work I address such contemporary themes as space exploration, excess, feminism, utility, spirituality and our consciousness with a fresh and playful sense of experimentation. Particular works investigate and interpret phenomenon such as Jupiter’s storm and crystal caverns while others present the universe through a psychedelic microscope.
Curious and determined the work I make is a quest through life about life itself; bridging the visual link between microcosm and macrocosm. During my process energy flows in and through me while creating in a meditative state. The science fictional and fantastical elements of my work provide an escape, an alternate reality, away from our present cultural, political and commercial atmosphere – while the whimsical topographical nature of my sculpted paintings serve as a metaphor for navigating my thoughts, life experiences and emotions. My cloying appetite for the optically obese produces arrangements that have obvious yet profound ruminations on personal, cultural, societal, religious and philosophical levels.
BIOGRAPHY
Art instructor, aspiring poet, creative coach, and mixed media artist, Nicole Irene, creates in the Berkshire hills of western Massachusetts. A gem + mineral enthusiast and consciousness explorer she believes in magic. Nicole Irene is moved by the beauty of the nocturnal sky, astronomical phenomena, metaphysics, and cosmology. Nicole Irene is a practitioner of herbal medicine, an eclectic solitary, an empyreal dreamer, and metaphysical philosopher who dwells in a derelict apple orchard surrounded by an extensive collection of houseplants, geological specimens, and creature companions.
See what else Nicole is up on social media over @TheEnchantedAltar as well as at www.TheEnchantedAltar.com
The rich heritage of craft in our country is a manifestation of our spirit, history, and imaginative spark as a people. For generations craft has been reinvented by innovative artists who examine, interpret, and execute extraordinary and radical ideas. I continue to find inspiration in the embrace of artistic processes and stimuli that lie outside the art historical canon.
Canvases are a ubiquitous symbol of high art in blue chip galleries. By applying unconventional mediums to these noble substrates such as spray paint, colored fibers, brass objects and crystal beads I create hybrid objects with materials and techniques that are traditionally marginalized under the category of “craft.” I employ unlikely combinations of unsophisticated materials that pry apart the hierarchies of artistic value, such as synthetic polyethylene housewrap, insulation and aluminum foil that come together rebelling against conventional categorization and aesthetic conventions; challenging notions of status, excess, and taste.
My artwork’s feminist grounding explores feminine narratives on the contemporary women’s identities and ideals commonly portrayed within fine art and craft. By exploring historically gendered art, traditions and rituals, my artwork endeavors to examine the nature of our customs and how they affect women. I aspire to create a conversation about what it means to be a modern woman today paralleling the expansion of the art world to include historically marginalized forms of craft, decoration, and abstract patterning associated with femininity and women’s work.
Informed by historical sources as varied as Surrealism, Baroque, Kitsch and Folk art movements the impetus for this work is distilled from my emotions, the metaphysical, nature and cosmic curio. Through my recent work I address such contemporary themes as space exploration, excess, feminism, utility, spirituality and our consciousness with a fresh and playful sense of experimentation. Particular works investigate and interpret phenomenon such as Jupiter’s storm and crystal caverns while others present the universe through a psychedelic microscope.
Curious and determined the work I make is a quest through life about life itself; bridging the visual link between microcosm and macrocosm. During my process energy flows in and through me while creating in a meditative state. The science fictional and fantastical elements of my work provide an escape, an alternate reality, away from our present cultural, political and commercial atmosphere – while the whimsical topographical nature of my sculpted paintings serve as a metaphor for navigating my thoughts, life experiences and emotions. My cloying appetite for the optically obese produces arrangements that have obvious yet profound ruminations on personal, cultural, societal, religious and philosophical levels.
BIOGRAPHY
Art instructor, aspiring poet, creative coach, and mixed media artist, Nicole Irene, creates in the Berkshire hills of western Massachusetts. A gem + mineral enthusiast and consciousness explorer she believes in magic. Nicole Irene is moved by the beauty of the nocturnal sky, astronomical phenomena, metaphysics, and cosmology. Nicole Irene is a practitioner of herbal medicine, an eclectic solitary, an empyreal dreamer, and metaphysical philosopher who dwells in a derelict apple orchard surrounded by an extensive collection of houseplants, geological specimens, and creature companions.
See what else Nicole is up on social media over @TheEnchantedAltar as well as at www.TheEnchantedAltar.com