Nicole Bricker (b. Minnesota, 1977) is a mixed media artist based in Redding, Connecticut. Her work explores nostalgia, memory, and the visual language of Midwestern suburbia, transforming the aesthetics of kitsch into reflections on identity and belonging. Drawing from family keepsakes and cultural ephemera, she reconstructs fragments of domestic life into layered compositions that merge personal narrative with collective experience.
Her practice spans painting, collage, and sculpture, combining found objects, cast plaster, and materials such as liquid rubber to create tactile works that balance humor, sentiment, and introspection.
Bricker’s work has been exhibited at the Lyman Allyn Museum (New London, CT), Rosalux Gallery (Minneapolis, MN), and Field Projects (New York, NY). She participated in The Canopy Program residency in 2023–24, where she received the James Bernard Haggarty Scholarship. Bricker is also the founder of Anonymous Society, a Connecticut-based gallery that supports artistic experimentation and dialogue.
Statement
My mixed media sculptures, collages, and paintings explore the nostalgia and visual language of Midwestern suburbia, reframing the aesthetics of kitsch as a site of memory, identity, and belonging. Drawing from keepsakes passed down through my family such as homewares, toys, and photographs, I reconstruct fragments of domestic life into layered compositions that merge personal narrative with cultural reflection.
Each piece begins through intuitive writing and color mapping. Post-it notes filled with words and memories evolve into carefully chosen palettes of hand painted collage papers. I integrate found objects, cast plaster, and materials like liquid rubber to create tactile works that balance humor, sentiment, and introspection. These forms recall household relics and decorative motifs reimagined in unexpected color combinations and blended materials. Fragments of the familiar become slightly strange, both tender and irreverent, blurring the line between memory and invention.
Beneath their surface charm, my works examine how memory is shaped by collective belief systems and how we assign value to the visual remnants of our past. By celebrating the ordinary and reclaiming the visual codes once dismissed as sentimental or decorative, I invite viewers to reconsider the cultural narratives embedded in nostalgia. My practice seeks to restore complexity and dignity to the aesthetics of the overlooked, transforming kitsch from cultural artifact into emotional architecture.