Nicole Renee’s art is influenced by her fascination with human perception of the natural world, both imagined and real. This desire to understand emotional contexts for memories comes in part from her Psychology degree from Washington & Jefferson College. Her pieces focus on the magical and whimsical qualities the future and the past seem to take on – the place where nostalgic images retain only fuzzy details around the edge yet leaves us with a strong sense of familiar mystery. Nicole’s paintings don’t tell the whole story – a lot of the narrative is up to the viewer.

Nicole’s art style is abstract magical realism with the palette of the old masters (though look closely, the colors aren’t muted, they are bright colors layered until they look dark). She focuses on realistic shapes but plays with texture and color, stripping away enough of reality to give a feeling of magic or other-worldliness to ordinary beings and places. She works primarily in watercolor on a water proof paper, using a many different tools to get the textures she desires.

When Nicole is not painting she is active in her art community. She is the Treasurer of the Pittsburgh Society of Artists Guild and is a member of the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh and of the Pittsburgh Watercolor Society.