LINDSEY NICHOLS: PROFILE
Lindsey Nichols paints portraits of quiet drama, subtly blending light and shadow to create true-to-life ambience. Her portrait subjects emerge in total harmony with their surroundings. So natural are Nichols's depictions, the viewer has a sense of actually witnessing a special moment as it is being lived.

Nichols began her formal training at the New Jersey Center for Visual Arts. She later attended the Art Students League in New York City, where she studied anatomy with the renowned Robert Beverly Hale. After receiving a four-year scholarship to The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Art and Science, also in New York, she went on to earn a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1983. That year she won the Overall Excellence Award from Cooper Union.

When she accepts a portrait commission, Nichols travels to the client's location. She encourages the participation of clients, not only in making decisions about pose, clothing, and setting, but also in visualizing the attributes of their "dream" painting.

Following this initial interaction between artist and client, when ideas are explored and preferences identified, Nichols takes numerous photographs of the portrait subjects. Sometimes a single photograph will capture both physical and personality traits that the artist wishes to delineate on canvas. In other instances, a combination of photos will be used as references.

Rembrandt and Velazquez are prominent among the masters of realism who continue to inspire and inform Nichols's painting. Like these old masters, Nichols often creates backgrounds for her portraits that are detailed, but never obtrusive. Focus is on the subjects themselves, imbued with an aura of timeless freshness.

Nichols's acute powers of observation have been honed over a 20-year career in painting. She translates these insights with much sensitivity into appealing tableaux resplendent with color and textural richness.