Nicole's Story Behind The Painting:

I’ve stood time after time, my head hanging over the water, unruly curls draping past my ears toward my lips. Time after time, I’ve caught glimpses of my reflection in the greenish blue ripples of water bodies around New York City.

As I look at my face reflected onto the water, like quivering glass, I know that it’s just my reflection. I know the “real” me is right here - these hands, this waist, these legs and feet. And yet, I can’t see my own face without a reflection on the water, without a mirror, without a camera.

Everything I paint is a self-portrait and also a depiction of something beyond myself. Where is the border between me and what’s beyond myself? The border is shifting, part-opaque and part-transparent, like my quivering ocean glass reflection, also called a pond or a river or a puddle.

My source material is this fuzzy borderline between everything me and everything outside of me, between my internal experience and my surroundings.