Annoucement: My First Solo Art Exhibition is set for November 15th! Reserve Your Free Tickets Now!

NICOLE DURHAM

Nicole Durham is a multidisciplinary figurative artist of Black and German descent living in Houston, Texas. Her exploration into nontraditional mediums has awarded her multiple exhibition opportunities, including "best in show" at The Ardest Gallery in The Woodlands, Texas. Through nontraditional mediums—whether it be caulk, textiles, found objects, or organic materials - Nicole seeks to transcend conventional representations of femininity and delve into the complexities of identity, resilience, vulnerability, and strength. Her work remains a deep exploration of the female form, female emotions, and the myriads that define womanhood.

Nicole was born in Beidigheim, Germany and moved to El Paso, Texas, where she became a US citizen at 8. Daughter of a German mother and African American father, her multiracial upbringing helped mold her creative spirit and passion for art. Her work often focuses on a deep exploration of womanhood from personal experiences.

In her early 20's, Nicole moved to Denver, CO, and art took a back burner to become a wife, a mother of two, and to pursue a very active career in marketing and event planning. Nicole would find marginal time to create a few specific and expressive pieces that derived from painful moments in her life, including Das Rot Frau, a caulk and acrylic creative capturing her journey with endometriosis, and Das Gelb Frab, a creative emerging from maternal bodily changes following the birth of her two children. After the tragic events of 911, Nicole and her family moved back to Texas, where she now resides in Houston.

In 2020, the global pandemic and quarantine allowed Nicole to rekindle her passion for the arts and aggressively pursue her artistic journey. Since then, Nicole has continued to create multiple full bodies of work and collections that capture her journey and continues to challenge herself, exploring multiple mediums.

TEXTURED ART

Why caulk?

As a female artist exploring the female form, Nicole wanted to work with a medium that echoed the emotional and physical labor women carry. She found it not in oil or acrylic, but in caulk. A tool referred with builders and repair, caulk became a symbol of resilience, reconstruction, and the act of holding things together, much like the roles women play every day.

Nicole first used caulk while multitasking between a DIY bathroom update and trying to study an Edvard Munch-inspired emotional self-portrait. "At the time, I was dealing with endometriosis and trying to capture my frustrations on the canvas. I was depleted all over. Angry with my body, disappointed with the lack of information available at the time, annoyed by my male doctor, and just pissed with my inability to control things...while lining the edge of the tub, because staying busy was the therapy then, my aha moment struck, and I abandoned the bathroom, to create what is Das Rot Frau followed by the first of my Jackson Pollock-inspired Chaos pieces.

PLASTER ART VS. CAULK ART

"I get this question all the time.

Utilizing caulk on my creatives is very much like sculpting and the industrial texture gives my creatives a very raw feel that I love.

A caulking gun is used to extract the white pasty substance from tubes and the squeeze can be relentless at times when forced out of the smallest of holes, and just when I’m annoyed beyond my own means and about to give up, it lends me a reprieve.

The porous material draws out the ambiguity of privileged creating, and I feel like it awards the viewer with dramatic relief and multi-level linear experiences".

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