Nicole Folkes is a passionate and poignant artist, whose oil paintings illustrate African American life from a time gone by. She puts you in a position of voyeurism where the situations are rarely as they seem. The piece "Church Social" puts a twist into the meaning of righteous socialization while the set-up brings to mind the religious paintings of the Italian Renaissance. Prevalent themes of romanticism, eroticism and in some cases debauchery, are used as muses to create larger than life characters that step off the canvas, into our hearts and minds. "My paintings expose the underbelly of society." Not one to allow her characters to be influenced by the emotional or personal opinions of the viewer, her pieces challenge the notion of the universal beauty standard. The viewer will see curvaceous bottoms and roundbreasted women who are unabashedly accepting of attention. “One might say the women I paint have no responsibility to anyone but themselves." The piece "Bootylicious" places the backside at center stage with no apologies and approaches the female form without fear or judgment.

Nicole is just as fearless with her use of color, which is influenced by memories of the Caribbean. Bold canvas colors accentuate the strengths and karmas of her characters and provide depth to the pieces. She studied Studio Art at Binghamton University and at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. She exhibits her work at the Nozoku Gallery in Atlanta’s Castleberry Hill district, and her prints can be found at galleries across the United States, Europe and the Caribbean. She will be featured in the July 2007 issue of UPSCALE Magazine, and her work was chosen to represent the 100 Black Men of America at their 2007 convention in Las Vegas. She is published by Artorg.org (formerly known as Essence Art) and Artful Greetings. She is also the creative mind and talent behind the Hunnypot Greetings Collection.

Nicole presently resides in Atlanta, GA with her husband Donsha, and son Nicolas. She is represented by Misti Moore, Kennesaw, GA.

 

 

Past exhibitions: 100 Black Men of America, Annual Conference 2007 Rude and Bold Women , Binghamton, New York Sisters Expo, New York, New York Stepstone Gallery, Brooklyn, New York Leslie-Lohman Gay Art Foundation , Soho, New York NY Black Pride, Lincoln Center, New York Design Schemes Showcase, Harlem, New York Mocada Museum, Collectors Auction, Brooklyn, NY Blacker than Thou, West side Artists Coalition, New York, NY Fairlie-Poplar Art Exhibition, Atlanta, GA

Commissions: Mautner Project, Washington DC AKBAR Restaurant, Los Angeles, CA Licenses: Artful Greetings Getty Images HunnyPot Greetings Illustration Works Queerstock

Upscale Magazine June/July 2007