About

Nicole Shannon is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice explores how perception, belief, and meaning shape human experience and the realities we inhabit. Working across media, she investigates the ways people interpret themselves and the world as they navigate the complexities of life.

Through metaphor-driven bodies of work, Nicole examines the narratives people create about themselves, others, and the world. Her series The Worlds We Create explores how internal belief systems influence lived experience through symbolic portraiture and imagined psychological landscapes. Her Rare Roses paintings investigate ideas of value, difference, and human worth through depictions of genetically abnormal roses. Through sculptural investigations of post-traumatic growth, she explores how rupture, adaptation, and resilience can fundamentally alter one’s sense of self and possibility.

At the core of Nicole’s practice is an existential inquiry into how humans construct meaning, navigate uncertainty, and are transformed through lived experience—questions that also inform Creative Wayfinding, her broader inquiry into creativity as a form of navigation.

Nicole began her career as a goldsmith and bench jeweler, where she developed a sensitivity to symbolism, material transformation, and the psychological resonance of objects—an approach that continues to inform her interdisciplinary practice. Her work has been featured in publications including Create! Magazine, Vogue Gioiello, and American Artist Magazine, and is held in collections at medical, academic, and genetic research centers including Boston Children’s Hospital, Clemson University’s Center for Human Genetics, and Greenwood Genetic Center. She studied metalsmithing, ceramics, and jewelry design at the State University of New York at New Paltz and the Savannah College of Art and Design.

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