Welcome to Endless Drawings! I have been drawing and painting for over 15 years and have been working hard to develop a line of wearable sculpture. When I am not in my studio I stay busy with volunteer work, teaching arts and crafts to adults with disabilities and completing as many projects as possible before I start graduate school at Columbia University for International Affairs (at SIPA). I love to travel and eventually I hope to set up sustainable art programs in low-income communities.
Face Book Page:
Lightning and the Feral Piñata: Artwork by Nicole Margaretten
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lightning-and-the-Feral-Piñata-Artwork-by-Nicole-Margaretten/183659125033980
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Artist Statement
My drawings portray a world where larger-than-life bacteria roam, neighborhoods blend into graveyards and repeating structures unravel or contribute to a growing mass.
Pieced together, my work narrates a roller coaster of experiences and observations, from slums and palaces to personified food and the psychiatric ward.
The figures in my drawings are often located in trap door situations yet are oblivious to their uncertain outcomes. These scenarios create sensations of calmness in the midst of calamity and perseverance despite unmanageable odds.
My influences include: a monstrous mural of a cheeseburger in Caracas, crumbling architecture and factory wastelands, objects that don't belong and my own schizoaffective hallucinations.
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Biography
Nicole Margaretten's work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions and her work resides internationally in private collections. She has received several scholarships along with a travel grant to draw and record sound in Colombia and Venezuela. Often combining the visual arts with community outreach, Nicole has given public lectures across the east coast and in December 2005 she exhibited the sculpture Recollecting Zeena at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston for World AIDS Day. July and August of 2002 she was an artist resident in South Australia.
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Education
MIA Master of International Affairs, Columbia University (2013)
MFA Master of Fine Arts, Tufts University with The School of the Museum of Fine Arts
2002-2005
BFA Bachelor of Fine Arts with Honors, Pratt Institute, 1998-2002
Honors, Scholarships and Grants
• MFA Travel Grant to record sound and draw in Venezuela and Colombia for a nine-week duration after graduation in 2005. Funded by The School of the Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA)
• MFA Scholarship Grant, SMFA
• Four Year Merit Scholarship, Pratt Institute
• Overture Awards Merit Scholarship, Midwest Tri-State Area Competition
Solo Art Exhibitions
• Hanna Studio Gallery, Ringwood, NJ
• Shore Institute of Contemporary Arts Café
• Cosi Gallery, Jersey City, NJ
• “Recollecting Zeena” The Museum of Fine Arts, in honor of World AIDS Day, Boston, MA
• “Convulsion Extinction” Tufts University Art Gallery, MFA Thesis Exhibition, Medford, MA
• “The Miasma of the Air” Boston Conservatory
• “Photographing Cuba” Harris A. Berman Diversity Gallery at Tufts Health Plan, Watertown, MA
