Maureen Nollette

My practice returns, insistently, to the grid — not as a rigid structure, but as a calming, egalitarian space where every part holds equal weight. Its apparent simplicity slows the viewer's attention, inviting a closer, more deliberate looking that ultimately reveals the human hand: the imperfections and minor deviations from order that testify to a maker's presence.

Working across drawing, painting, collage, installation, and relief sculpture, I employ fabric, thread, and salvaged cardboard — materials whose primary function is to hold, bind, and connect. In one body of work, I trace the flattened geometries of cardboard packaging to construct a grid-like armature. These forms are considerably engineered objects: their tabs and score lines effect a transformation from two dimensions into three, allowing the object to protect and contain. I find them strikingly similar to sewing patterns, another flat form engineered toward dimensionality — a connection that links back to my mother, who taught me to sew as a child. Cardboard and cloth alike encode a quiet logic of care: instructions for the transformation of the flat into the load-bearing.

In other works, the grid loosens into something more organic: an accumulation of small, rep...

Master of Fine Arts, Queens College, New York, NY
Bachelor of Fine Arts, Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City, MO
Bachelor of Journalism, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE

SOLO AND DUO EXHIBITIONS
2020
between/among/within, Lowell Arts Center, Lowell, MI
2016
Honorable Ordinaries, Grand Rapids Art Museum, Grand Rapids, MI (catalog)
2015
Governors Island Art Fair, New York, NY (catalog)
2012
Broad Without Walls, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI
2010
Governors Island Art Fair, Governors Island, New York, NY
2009
Untitled (flesh), Urban Institute of Contemporary Arts, Grand Rapids, MI

GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2026
Women Painting on Paper: Summer 2026, Mari Art Collective, Online gallery

2025
Biennial Faculty and Staff Exhibition, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI
6th Michigan Contemporary Art Exhibition (juried), Muskegon Museum of Art, Muskegon, MI

2024
95th Michigan Contemporary Art Exhibition (juried), Muskegon Museum of Art, Muskegon, MI
The World Is On Fire, Gallery 106, Grand Rapids, MI

2023
West Michigan Area Show (juried), Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, Kalamazoo, MI

2022
93rd Michigan Contemporary Art Exhibition (juried), Muskegon Museum of Art, Muskegon, MI
[Honorable Mention]
Manufactured Narratives (juried), Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts, Grand Rapids, MI

2020
Works on Paper (juried), Long Beach Island Foundation of the Arts and Sciences, Loveladies, NJ

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