BIO
Oakland-based painter Kate Nichols gets into all manner of mischief: she makes nanoparticles to mimic structurally colored animals, uses CRISPR-Cas9 to “paint” with genes, grows artificial skin from microorganisms, and makes her own paints following fifteenth-century recipes. Joining the Alivisatos Nanoscience Lab at UC Berkeley as their first artist-in-residence gave Nichols a unique opportunity to delve deeply into the science of color. Following this, Nichols was named a Richard Diebenkorn Teaching Fellow at the San Francisco Art Institute, a Jacob K. Javits Fellow, and a TED Fellow. Her artwork has been featured on the cover of the journal Nature, in the Stavanger Kunstmuseum in Norway, and in The Leonardo Museum’s permanent collection. Nichols has been a fellow at the Vermont Studio Center, and an artist-in-residence at the Djerassi Resident Artist Program, Stochastic Labs, and the Innovative Genomics Institute at UC Berkeley. She lectures widely at universities, museums, and conferences. Lately, Nichols has been working on an as-yet secret project: writing and illustrating children’s books that draw on her love of science, color, and the natural world.
ARTIST STATEMENT
When I am centrifuging nanoparticles in a lab, cooking up batches of painting media using centuries-old techniques, or using CRISPR to “paint” new spots on butterflies’ wings, I am digging deeply into painting’s past to tease out its future.
My work draws upon a long tradition of painters who developed their own media. Embedding this historical context within my seemingly futuristic work allows me to explore the charged space between art and science in new ways.
And in very old ways. The creative powers these technologies promise are the stuff of our oldest stories: powers reserved to the gods land in the hands of the created. Chaos ensues. Old order gives way to new.
The desires at the heart of these stories point to something transgressive at the core of human nature—and artistic and scientific impulses alike. In my painting, I seek out these points of overlap. Between science and art. Between where we come from and where we’re going. And between the stories we know, and the ones we can only guess at.
CONTACT
nicholskate [at] gmail.com
CV
EDUCATION
2013 Master of Fine Arts, California College of the Arts, San Francisco, California
2010 Master of Arts in Visual Studies, University of California, Berkeley
2004 Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art, Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio
AWARDS, FELLOWSHIPS, and RESIDENCIES
2019 Artist-in-residence, Stochastic Labs and Innovative Genomics Institute, University of California, Berkeley
2019 Vermont Studio Center Fellow
2015 Richard Diebenkorn Teaching Fellow, San Francisco Art Institute
2015 Scientific Delirium Madness Residency, Djerassi Artist-in-Residence Program
2010 – present TED Fellow
2008 – 2016 Artist-in-residence, Alivisatos Nanoscience Lab, University of California, Berkeley
2010 – 2013 Jacob K. Javits Fellow
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
2016 Visiting Painting Faculty, San Francisco Art Institute
2015 Richard Diebenkorn Teaching Fellow, San Francisco Art Institute
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2021 Group exhibition: Iridescence, Louisiana Art & Science Museum, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
2020 Solo exhibition: Kate Nichols, Gund Gallery, Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio
2018 Group exhibition: Pleasure Garden, Eleanor Harwood Gallery, San Francisco, California, (curated by Eleanor Harwood)
2017 Solo exhibition: Angle of Incidence, Black Crown Gallery, Oakland, California, (curated by Chris Nickel and Chrissy Cano)
2017 Group exhibition: AbstrAction, Marin MOCA, (curated by Catharine Clark)
2015 Four-person exhibition: Article Biennial 2015, Stavanger Kunstmuseum, Stavanger, Norway, (curated by Hege Tapio)
2015 Group exhibition: Observations and Collections, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado (curated by Jennifer Kent)
2013 Group Exhibition: MFA Thesis Show 2013, California College of the Arts (curated by Glen Helfand)
2012 Group exhibition: Emergence and Structure, Lafayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania; MDC Freedom Tower Gallery, Miami, Florida; University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida (curated by Daniel Hill and Ron Janowich; catalogue essay by Jonah Lehrer)
2012 Solo exhibition: Through the Looking Glass, The Leonardo, Salt Lake City, Utah
2011 Group exhibition: New Insight 2011, Chicago, Illinois (curated by Susanne Ghez and Mia Ruyter)
2010 Solo exhibition: Scaled, Materials Research Society, San Francisco, California
2009 Solo exhibition: Drawings: Scaled, Mauve, Berkeley, California
2009 Group exhibition: Enormous Microscopic, Studio for Urban Projects, San Francisco, California, (curated by Phil Ross)
MUSEUM COLLECTIONS
The Leonardo, Salt Lake City, Utah
SELECTED SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS
2019 Mark A. Ratner Series of Scholars Lecture, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois
2018 Visiting Artist Lecture, Augusta University, Augusta, Georgia
2016 BergamoScienza, Bergamo, Italy
2016 Mills College Art Lecture Series, Mills College Art Museum, Oakland, California
2016 Visiting Artist and Scholar Lecture Series, San Francisco Art Institute
2016 Science of Art Lecture Series, Stanford University, Stanford, California
2015 Exploring Science in the Studio, AICAD Symposium, California College of the Arts, San Francisco
2015 Stavanger Kunstmuseum, Stavanger, Norway
2014 San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, California
2013 Leonardo public lecture series talk, Stanford University, Stanford, California
2012 Analogous Thinking in the Arts and Sciences public lecture series talk, University of Florida, Gainsville
2012 TEDxRainier, Seattle, Washington
2012 TEDActive, Palm Springs, California
2010 3M, Minneapolis, Minnesota
2010 The Exploratorium, San Francisco, California
2010 The Case Foundation, Washington D.C.
2010 TED, Long Beach, California
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Artwork featured as cover:
2012 Through the Looking Glass featured on cover of Nature, March 22, 2012.
Feature articles:
2015 “The Ambiguous Colors of Nanotechnology,” Jeanne Carstensen, Nautilus.
2015 “Color by Shape,” Jyoti Madhusoodanan, ACS Science Central.
2012 “Plasmons Resonate in Atomic-Scale Metal Particles,” Andrew Myers, Stanford University Engineering News.
2010 “TED Fellow using nanoparticle paint,” Kristen Phillipkoski, BoingBoing.
2010 “Body of Evidence,” Kristen Phillipkoski, BoingBoing.
2010 “Color by Physics,” Lauren Rugani, Symmetry Magazine, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center.
Q&A:
2016 “Fusing Age-Old Artistic Tradition With Cutting-Edge Technology: A Q-and-A with Kate Nichols, artist in residence at a nanoscience laboratory,” Emily Tamkin, Slate Magazine, September 20, 2016.
Featurette:
2010 “Introducing TED Fellow: Kate Nichols,” Helen Walters, Business Week.
Documentary:
2011 The Leonardo Museum produced a short film to accompany my installation, Through the Looking Glass,
which is also featured on theleonardo.org.
2010 “Color by Nano: The Art of Kate Nichols,” ran on two shows, Gallery Crawl and Quest: Science on the Spot
on KQED Public Television, San Francisco.
Catalogue:
2012 Emergence and Structure. (Catalogue essay by Jonah Lehrer.)
2015 Article Bienniale, Satvanger Kunstmuseum. (Catalogue essay by Nora S. Vaage.)
Artwork featured and discussed in scholarly journal article:
2013 “Engineering plasmonic metal colloids through composition and structural design,” N. E. Motl, A. F. Smith, and C. J. DeSantis, Chemical Society Reviews.