Nichole van Beek has lived in Morgantown, West Virginia since 2022. She spends a lot of time outdoors exploring the public parks and wilderness areas that make this Appalachian region so special. In her most recent work, she paints local flora, fauna, fungi, and their environments, with a focus on native species and significant water or geological features.
These paintings are made with natural dye paints that she makes from plant and insect sources, some of which she forages or grows locally. Unlike other paints, these materials are regenerative and biodegradable, and their colors are alive—they evolve as the raw plant and insect matter is processed, develop and shift as they dry and set, and continue to change subtly over time.
She received a BFA from The Cooper Union in 1998 and an MFA from The University of California, Santa Barbara in 2007. She has exhibited work at Jeff Bailey Gallery (Hudson and NYC), Geoffrey Young Gallery (Great Barrington, MA), Morgan Lehman Gallery (NYC), Interstitial (Seattle, WA), White Flag Projects (St. Louis, MO), Big Ramp Gallery (Philadelphia), and Ortega y Gasset and Tiger Strikes Asteroid in Brooklyn, among other spaces.
She has attended residencies at Vermont Studio Center (through a grant from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation), Jentel Foundation, and Kingsbrae International Residency for the Arts. She was also the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts Grant in painting, a Professional Development grant from the West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History, and she participated in Socrates Sculpture Park Emerging Artist Fellowship.
She is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Art at West Virginia University. She has taught painting, drawing, photography, foundations, English, and research classes at Davidson College, Penn State, Pratt Institute, SUNY Suffolk, Mt. Holyoke College, University of California Santa Barbara, and Hyogo International High School in Ashiya, Japan.
To request a full CV, use the contact link or email nicholev at gmail.