Details:
① Artwork:
Sick
This painting of kiwano fruit laid upon a colorful tapestry becomes more sinister with closer inspection. From its center, a shiny millipede emerges as bursts of rot attack its surface.
Christina Nicodema’s paintings speak to our cultural moment through the metaphors of bloom and decay. She shows us how the organic becomes rotten while life simultaneously blossoms. Through her bastardized images of prosperity, we feel compelled to question more circular ideas of life and further understand the finitude of aging, life and death.
Specs:
Elements of thick impasto are present on surface of painting.
③ Artist:
With thick paint marks and bold colors, Christina Nicodema creates works that provocatively express humanity’s detachment from the natural world. Using the subject of food, she contrasts its supposed benefits (joy and security) with its more sober impacts (gluttony and paranoia). Nicodema’s central motif is humanity’s visceral desire to consume and dominate, focusing on the resultant destruction of animals and their natural habitats through her imagery.
Christina Nicodema was born in 1987 in New York City, NY, and resides in Long Island City, NY. She received her BFA from the Parsons School of Design in New York City, NY (2009).
Nicodema has mounted solo or two-person exhibitions at Scott Miller Projects in Birmingham, AL (2022); Nancy Littlejohn Fine Art in Houston, TX (2020); and Martha's Contemporary, Austin, TX (2019).
Her work has been featured in group exhibitions like To Die For, curated by Laura Sanders, at Contemporary Art Matters, Columbus, OH (2022); Party For One at My Pet Ram, New York, NY (2022); A la carte: A Visual Exploration of Our Relationship with Food at Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts, Birmingham, AL (2020); New Wave at Anna Zorina Gallery, New York City, NY (2020); and Flora/Fauna at Josée Bienvenu Gallery, New York City, NY (2019).
She won the Peter S. Reed Foundation Grant for painting (2021).
