Michael Nicholas

Michael Nicholas (b. 1970)

An interdisciplinary artist with over 30 years experience creating in multiple mediums and disciplines including visual art, writing, music, and theater.

Based in New York City, I was born in Los Angeles, where I began making art as a single child in a single-parent, working-class household, which meant I seldom had the means to buy art materials. I believe this led to a certain resourcefulness—I used whatever I could find to draw, paint, and build with. In my early teens I began writing and making music alongside visual art, and upon leaving high school I worked first as a recording engineer and then as a graphic designer in and around Hollywood for about a decade.

I then decided to move to Europe to study music composition, and lived and studied there for 11 years before returning to the US to get my PhD at the University of Califonia Berkeley. Upon completion of the degree I relocated to NYC to pursue a career as an independent interdisciplinary artist.

Artist Statement

For me, art is a way of seeing and understanding the world. I am equally at ease using many different materials, and have created a diverse and distinct body of work consisting of paintings, sculpture, works on paper, mix...

2016 — Art Students League of New York, NYC, (ongoing) classes including Mixed Media, Experimental Writing, 3D Sculpture, & Printmaking
2016 — Museum of Modern Art, NYC, various workshops
2016 — Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop, NYC, screenprinting workshop
2014 — University of California Berkeley, PhD in Music Composition
2010 — University of California Berkeley, Painting
2009 — University of California Berkeley, Introduction to Visual Thinking (lecture + studio sections)
1995 — Platt College, Los Angeles, Diploma in Graphic Design

SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2016 — Open Studio, Hell’s Kitchen, NYC
2015 — Open Studio, Hell’s Kitchen, NYC

GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2016 — Student Concours, Phyllis Harriman Mason Gallery of the Art Students League of New York, NYC
2016 — Twitter Art Exhibit, Trygve Lie Gallery, NYC

ART FAIRS
2016 — Artexpo New York, NYC