Nicholus O.

Drawing, Painting, Sculpture, Artmaking

New York City

• I've made wooden clocks that are shaped like dogs and cats
• I am from Ohio
• My sister is a chemical engineer

Hi! I'm Cole. I'm an undergraduate student at Hunter College, studying painting. I've been drawing and painting since I was very young. My grandmother Barb has always been my biggest supporter and she's a wonderful artist herself, especially as a portrait painter. I also enjoy skateboarding, reading, traveling, and watching movies with my partner Nicol. We live in Queens. She's a full time student as well, studying acting in Manhattan. Some of my favorite artists are Jean-Michel Basquiat, Helen Frankenthaler, Frank Auerbach, Lee Krasner, Rembrandt, and Wayne Thiebaud. I paint mostly with oils and mixed media on medium to large canvas. I love to work with oil pastels. For the past couple of years my practice has focused on still life and gestural, semi-figural abstraction. I've also had extensive experience creating portraits, cartoons, sculpture, and graphic design. To me, children and adolescents go hand in hand with art and craft making. For any child, art is essential to their development, providing a source for expression, idea-crafting, and friendship with fellow makers. I believe that the art room ought to be a place of reprieve and individual progress. I've designed several lesson plans from scratch, including improvisational sculpture, painting from memory, still life objects becoming special through paint, and comic book superheroes. Some of the most influential people that I've known have been my art teachers and professors. Art wonderfully forges community, fosters empathy, and guides conversation. Art is what I've chosen for my life, to make, learn, teach, and be around it.