Photo credit: MSZ Foto/Mateo Serna Zapata
Nicole Maynard is originally from Boston, Massachusetts, where she earned a BFA with majors in Painting and Art Education from Massachusetts College of Art and Design and an MFA in Painting from the University of Pennsylvania. She showed her work in numerous solo and group exhibitions, moving to Miami in 2017, where her art continues to evolve, being inspired and challenged by her colleagues in Miami’s vibrant contemporary art scene.
Born in 1971, as a child Maynard spent a lot of time alone reading, drawing, watching television, thinking, and observing. She became an artist because of her uncle, a painter and fashion model who lived in Miami and who passed on a life-long passion for art and art mentorship before he passed away from AIDS at the age of 36.
After a range of experiences teaching art to students in K-12 public and private schools and as a professor in higher education, Maynard is now the Education Programs Manager at the Institute of Contemporary Art Miami where she helps to facilitate art opportunities for children and youth. She is an artist-in-residence at the Bakehouse Art Complex in Miami’s Wynwood Arts District.
Spotlight in Canvas Rebel
Spotlight in Shout Out Miami
Spotlight in Voyage Magazine
Spotlight in Hyperallergic
Follow my art exhibition reviews on the gallery guide, Xzib.
Artist Statement
I use color and form to depict otherworldly, abstract places on the edge.
The pictures reflect our time but aren’t illustrations of it. They are the result of a genuine search for meaning, a search and assertion of myself in a beautiful world that feels as if it’s in the midst of collapse. Geometric, sometimes architectural forms seem situated in an environment yet appear to dissipate. Their edges are often soft while expressive, winding strokes break them. Unlike classical beauty, everything is changing.
My environment mirrors this phenomenon. I live in Miami where buildings go up around me in what feels like the span of a heartbeat. My studio is in a wonderful old building with 60 other artists. A fundraising initiative brings hope for repairs. In the meantime, the roof leaks as a result of the same downpours that cause cars to be towed from city streets that are suddenly rivers. Climate change is personal, as a bucket is placed on the threshold of my studio door, the ceiling threatening to open to the sky over my work. The building in which I live had major renovations when pool chemicals seeped into concrete supports, eroding them. It was only discovered because of the condo collapse in Surfside.
Formally speaking, color and composition structure the images. My lifetime pursuit of painting allows me to create images that are strong yet nuanced. They may appear dispassionate, but a closer experience of their subtle transitions and paint handling reveals specific unnameable feelings. The paint application is important, just like notes that form a whole in classical music, hard to name yet full.
As for the viewer, the viewer will perceive or not. My work is for sustained looking, not only in one encounter, but over many. While it’s possible to have an immediate response, much is missed if the viewer glances and moves on. In the end, the images are poetry meant to be memorized and awaiting a return reading. They exist to inhabit.