I'd love to talk to you.
To inquire about a painting or commission or to set up a studio visit or for other questions, please send me a message at
nicole (@) artbynicolerenee.com
or submit the form below
Artist Statement
I paints journeys through imagined spaces and misremembered places. These landscapes are based on my memories of memories. These landscapes include things remembered and things forgotten represented by half realistic and half abstract shapes, things real and unreal.
Parts of the landscape shift and become their own active subject, playing, moving and breaking away expressing the loss of memory with imagination filling the gap.
I work in oils and watercolors in an intuitive way. I am mis-remembering and imagining as I work. I explore and create a world one small brushstroke at a time.
Nicole Renee Ryan is a watercolorist, oil painter and muralist from Mercer, PA. Nicole paints imagined landscapes, but surprisingly, she’s not all that interested in traditional landscape paintings, instead she uses the landscape as a means to explore the concept of memory. Her interest in the importance and fallibility of memory arose during college while getting her degree in psychology from Washington & Jefferson College.
Her goal is to recreate a place she felt she had been at but can’t quite pinpoint. As memories move from reality to abstraction, it becomes easier to misremember things, or think they may have just been a dream. This hazy area is Nicole’s source of inspiration. She uses color and shape to create ethereal landscapes that illustrate the purgatory between memory and imagination, the real and the unreal.
In 2015 Nicole was awarded a residency at the New York Student’s League at Vytacil and a fellowship at Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She was nominated for Pittsburgh Emerging Artist of the Year for 2016. In 2017 she was awarded a Flight School Fellowship through the Heinz Endowments. She has exhibited paintings in the Heinz History Center and The Butler Museum of American Art. Her works have been exhibited in NYC, Chicago and Miami. Her last solo show, Land of Little Thoughts and No Worries, was hosted at the Westmoreland Museum of American Art.
Biography
CV
SOLO AND TWO PERSON EXHIBITIONS
2023 You Are In Your Own Time Now - solo show at The Hoyt, New Castle, PA
2022 As Everywhere of Silver - at Southern Allegheny Museum of Art
2021 Experiments in Reality – Solo Show Boxheart Gallery, Pittsburgh, PA
2021 Call and Response - 2 person show with Annie Heisey Union Hall, Pittsburgh, PA
2020 Land of Little Thoughts and No Worries - Westmoreland Museum of Art, Greensburg, PA
2020 Where Do We Go From Here? – with Teresa Roche Art & Light Gallery, Greenville, SC
2018 Anywhere and Nowhere Boxheart Gallery, Pittsburgh, PA
2018 Memories of Memories Pew Fine Arts Center, Grove City College, Grove City, PA
2017 Remnants Pop up exhibit 5852 Baum Blvd, Pittsburgh, PA
2017 In Conversation –Associated Artists of Pittsburghat Point State Park University
2017 I Was There Nutting Gallery Wheeling, WV
2017 The Place and the Unplace Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, Pittsburgh, PA
2016 Everywhere and Nowhere Crary Art Gallery, Warren, PA
2016 Memories of Memories Undercroft Gallery, Pittsburgh, PA
2014 Weather and Mood Sans MOCA Gallery Greenville, PA
2014 Déjà vu Grove City Artworks Grove City, PA
2013 Selected Works Gateway Lodge Cooks Forest, PA
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2024 Shared Concerns - St. Vincent College Verostko Art Center, Latrobe, PA
2023 AAP Power of Grandeur - Ice House Studios, Pittsburgh, PA
2020 AAP 107th Annual exhibit - Westmoreland Museum of Art, Greensburg, PA
2018 Aqua Art – Miami, during Art Basel
2018 Affordable Art Fair – NYC, during Frieze
2018 Art of Place - Heinz History Museum, Pittsburgh, PA
2018 Almost 17 and #wearestillhere – Boxheart Gallery Pittsburgh, PA
2018 Mix and Match – Gallery Oh! Chicago, IL
2017 Associated Artist’s of Pittsburgh – Bottleworks Gallery Johnstown, PA
2017 Aqueous Open International Watercolor Exhibit – Spinning Plate Gallery Pittsburgh, PA
2017 Resting Place: The American Landscape - Chautauqua Institute of Art Chautauqua NY
2016 Aqueous Open International Watercolor Exhibit - Spinning Plate Gallery- Pittsburgh, PA
2016 Dollar Bank Three Rivers Arts Festival Juried Exhibition – Pittsburgh, PA
2015 Outside the Frame – Pittsburgh Watercolor Society
2015 Aqueous Open – International Watercolor Exhibit – Spinning Plate Gallery Pittsburgh PA
2015 Century Inn Art Show Invitational - 4 person show – Scenery Hill, PA
2014 Aqueous Open – International Watercolor Exhibit – at Spinning Plate Gallery
2014 PSA Internationally Inspired at 3rd Street Gallery – Carnegie, PA
2013 PSA Annual – Father Ryan Arts Center – Pittsburgh PA
2013 New Collective – All Pittsburgh Guild Show at Pittsburgh Center for the Arts
2013 Aqueous Open – International Watercolor Show – Third Street Gallery Pittsburgh PA
2012 Westmoreland Art Nationals Juried Exhibition – Westmoreland, PA
2012 39th Hoyt Regional Juried Art Exhibition – The Hoyt Institute of Fine Arts New Castle, PA 2012 74th Area Annual Artists Annual Juried Exhibition – The Butler Institute of American Art
PUBLIC ARTWORKS
2023 In Progress - Running Circles Splashpad Mural - Mercer PA
2023 Traffic Wrap Boxes - Johnson City TN
2019 CATA Bus stop mural – Meadville PA
2018 Pittsburgh Airport Installation at Gate B27
2016 Series of two murals in the strip district 18th St. between Smallman and Penn
2016 Sidewall Mural – Bloomfield PA January
2015 Mercer Mural – Mercer Railroad Station
AWARDS / RESIDENCIES / FELLOWSHIPS
2022 Creative Entrepreneur Accelerator Program Grant through Erie Arts & Culture
2017 Flight School Fellowship – Pittsburgh Filmmakers and Center for the Arts
2015 Pittsburgh Emerging Artist of the Year nominee for 2016
2015 VCCA – Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Fellowship
2015 The Art Student’s League of New York Residency at Vytlacil
BIBLIOGRAPHY
2023 Woven Tale Press - June 2023
2022 Pittsburgh Quarterly “Art and Intention” – Summer 2022
2022 Latrobe Bulletin - "SAMA celebrates 25 years with 'As Everwhere of Silver' exhibition May 18th 2022
2022 Pittsburgh Post Gazette - "Can Art Heal?" - March 20th 2022
2020 Shout Out Atlanta – “Meet Nicole Renee Ryan artist” – September 29th 2020
2020 Art & Light Gallery owner collaborates with Pittsburgh artist on new exhibit – Greenville Journal
2019 Distinctive Art and It’s Creators – The Sharon Herald Oct 13th 2019
2019 Mercer welcomes two new inductees into Alumni Hall of Fame - Record Argus May 2nd
2018 Voyage ATL Magazine “Meet Nicole Ryan”
2017 VACI’s ‘Resting Place” The Chautauquan Daily
2017 Potter Loves Creative Artist Interview
2016 Intersections – The Warren Time’s Observer Nov 12th 2016
2015 More Art on The Way – Record Argus Oct 22nd 2015
2015 WFMJ Youngstown TV Interview Mercer Mural September 21st 2015
2015 Art on the Wall, Mural Highlights Local History– The Sharon Herald September 28th 2015
2015 Mercer Art Collective Choses Subject for Mural – Record Argus September 2015
2015 Revised Mural Back on Track – Allied News September 2015
2015 North Light Books - Splash 16: Texture – Till It Be Morrow – released June 2015
2015 Pittsburgh Post Gazette, March 7, 2015 – Home & Garden Show designers find inspiration in art.
2015 Record Argus, April 16, 2015 – Upcoming Mural Just Part of Group’s Efforts to Bolster, Beautify Mercer
2014 PlayDay – March 5, 2014 – Grove City Artworks Presents Nicole Renee Ryan
2013 Record Argus – Sept 28, 2013 – Mercer Artist Awaits Bigger, Better Challenges
2012 Featured in an article in the Sharon Harold
LECTURES / PANELS
2022 Grant Panelist for the Erie Arts & Culture's 2023 Mid-Career Artist Fellowship Grant
2017 SIX X ATE: In Situ – Guest Lecturer, Pittsburgh, PA
SELECTED COLLECTIONS
Samsung Frame TV / Saatchi Partnership
Allegheny Country Club
Incline Equity Partners
The Benter Foundation
PNC Bank
Frick Innovation Center
CURRENT REPRESENTATION
Bonfoey Gallery – Cleveland, OH
Boxheart Gallery – Pittsburgh, PA
Art & Light Gallery – Greenville, SC
EDUCATION
2007 BA in Psychology, minor in professional writing, graduated cum laude, Washington & Jefferson College
Process Video
Join Nicole in her studio in the summer of 2019 as she paints and talks about her work and process. Video by Mike Weber.
Nicole's Studio is located in Mercer, PA
1.5 hrs E of Cleveland and 1 hr N of Pittsburgh USA
Nicole is represented by:
Boxheart Gallery in Pittsburgh, PA
Bonfoey Gallery in Cleveland, OH
Art & Light Gallery in Greenville, SC
