From its perch at 1133 Broadway, an Antony Gormley sculpture surveys Manhattan.

www.6sides2everystory.blogspot.com

Her cape must have been in the cleaners, but Nicol’s skill sets would make the X-Men blush.   The Truckee Community College Instructor, mother of teen daughters,  visual arts innovator and iconoclast received her Master’s of Fine Arts in Visual Arts from Boise State University.  Her Masters Thesis was titled Postures and Parts: Composing The Male Nude.  In the introduction,  there’s a passage by poet Audre Lord that aptly sums up Nicol’s view of our society’s repressed sexual expression:

“…she spoke of sexual phobias as being ‘the real conditions of all our lives in this place and time.’ She urged  ‘each of us to reach down into that deep place of knowledge inside and touch that terror and loathing of any difference that lives there.  See whose face it wears. Then the personal as the political can begin to illuminate all our choices.’”

Nicol’s range of mediums seems endless.  Like Ray Johnson, she sees art hidden in plane in the processes of our interactions.   In her 2008 invitation to participate in the collaborative 6 Sides 2 Every Story project, Nicol writes:

“As humans, we have the incredible ability to perceive the same events as completely different happenings. This collaboration project will give consideration to these individuals point of views. Participants  are asked to illustrate their own individual perspectives by carving one side of a wooden cube. Each cube will represent one current issue found in a national/international article, internet posting or magazine. This project will expand across the United States, starting with 100 (2” x 2” x 2”) cubes, 600 participants.

http://www.renotahoetonight.com/artist-candace-nicol/

Photo credit: Dana Nolsch

As technology offers increasingly accessible and pervasive means of expression, we instinctively adapt to multi-media bombardments from every direction. In this environment, painting has increasingly become a more radical method of participating in a contemporary conversation, challenging our expectations and demanding that we slow down in order to carefully consider it.

Return to Departure refers to the notion that sometimes the best launching point into the future is from where you’ve been all along. This juried exhibition will feature paintings from 16 artists that look ahead while remaining grounded in this traditional medium. Jurors Philip Govedare and Helen O’Toole are artists and University of Washington painting professors and Cable Griffith is KAC’s Exhibitions Director.

Artists include Phillip Amrhein, Grant Barnhart, Louise Britton, Cynthia Camlin, Carole d’Inverno, Sam Faix, Julia Freeman, Austin Furtak-Cole, Isabel F. Kahn, Mikela Naylor, Candace Nicol, Joanne Pavlak, Danila Rumold, Amanda Smith, Jeffrey Sully, and Lindsey Warren.

Kirkland Arts Center is located at the corner of 7th Avenue and Market Street in Kirkland, Washington. Hours for exhibits in the Kirkland Arts Center Gallery are Monday through Friday, 11am to 6pm; Saturdays, 11am to 5pm and second Thursdays until 8pm. The KAC Gallery is free and open to the public.

For more information visit www.kirklandartscenter.org.

Evolve Panel 1 was chosen for this show

Meet the Artist Artown 2009

Reno Magazine July 2009

PHOTO BY LAUREN RANDOLPH

Candace Nicol, an artist whose work is usually too controversial for Artown, created this year’s festival poster

It’s hard to put a label on artist Candace Nicol. Her work is a hybrid of many different techniques. Principally a printmaker, Nicol combines painting, digital and traditional print techniques and assemblage to create multilayered pieces.

Nicol is this year’s Artown poster designer. She normally works with what some might consider to be controversial subject matter and so wasn’t considering applying for the poster competition. “I would never apply for this whole competition with the Artown thing because of my work with the male nudes,” she thought.

However, she had just completed a series of prints called Firewalls in July 2008 that veered from her normal subject matter. Using collagraphs and screenprints on plexi glass, Firewalls explores psychological restraints and viewpoints specifically arising from interactions among people of different races. “It was the last day to apply for the poster,” says Nicol. A colleague saw her Firewalls work and encouraged her to apply for the competition. “And, so I did,” says Nicol.

The poster Nicol created shows off her unique style. However, the artist’s multistep process is invisible in the final product. Nicol worked with collagraphs to create prints, then she cut the prints and collaged them together to make layered constructions. The original pieces have lots of depth and texture to them and seem more sculptural than print-like.

In the process of building the poster, Nicol made various plates and prints—she had to make nine prototypes for the committee to choose from. The leftovers from the process were compelling, and the committee proposed that Nicol make finished pieces from them. She will be displaying a body of work that relates to the artwork for the poster at West Street Market during July. This will be an opportunity for people to see the process behind the poster and to gain insight into her techniques. The pieces contain imagery and symbols used in the poster design. They are small, affordable and contain vibrant colors and textures. The art will be for sale, and 50 percent of the proceeds will be donated to Artown for future Discover the Arts projects. “This is my way of giving back to the community and to help Artown continue with what I believe is an important event for everyone in the region,” says Nicol.

As part of Artown’s Discover the Arts, Nicol will be teaching a printmaking workshop for kids ages 8-12. It will be held on July 1 as one of the festival’s opening events. “The artwork that I created for the Artown poster was constructed primarily out of prints, so we thought that sharing the printmaking process would be a wonderful addition to Artown’s Discover the Arts Program,” she says.

Also in July, Nicol will be teaching a workshop through the Nevada Museum of Art that teaches participants how to make collagraphs. Over the course of two Saturdays, students will get to understand the actual printmaking process. And, every July, Nicol does a workshop at Saint Mary’s Art Center in Virginia City. This year, it’s all about learning the hybrid process in which Nicol works.

Nicol’s current body of work is a series of hybrid prints and large-scale paintings titled Ornamen. The prints combine digital, photobased intaglio and traditional print techniques and serve as prototypes for the larger paintings or become part of various print exchanges. The paintings use parts of her collagraph plates as raised textures—with designs like wallpaper—that obscure digital images of male nudes.

“I always experiment,” says Nicol. “Sometimes it doesn’t work, sometimes it does.” This seems to be her modus operandi when approaching art and allows her to continue exploring and stretching the boundaries of printmaking.

http://www.newsreview.com/reno/content?oid=1021052

Artown’s Discover the Arts program is a series of FREE weekday workshops for children throughout the month of July. Held at various times and locations, the series introduces children to a variety of art forms including music, poetry, dance, theater, visual arts and more. Nicol’s “Discover Printmaking” workshop July 1, 2 p.m. at West Street Market kicks off Artown’s 2009 Discover the Arts series as well as the festival’s Opening Extravaganza.

For purchase information contact info@candacenicol.com. For more information on Artown visit www.RenoIsArtown.com or call 775-322-1538.

###

TO SEE THE WORK GO TO : http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2011817&id=1399622826 

Thank you for your consideration,

Media Representatives
Kristen Power
Emily Stratton
RKPR Inc.
775-323-6333
media@rkpr.com