This has garnered her a career in art history as well as in museum studies. Nicole holds a Bachelors of Fine Art from Old Dominion University and a Masters in Art History and Visual Culture from Lindenwood University.

Her goals and research are focused around Black portraiture and figurative art. Nicole’s scholarship consists of documenting and discovering modern and contemporary artists in portraiture and figurative art. Her primarily focus is the Black Art Movement, prioritizing her research in portraiture and figurative art. Coined during the Civil Rights Movement, this protest opened lanes for artists of color in portraiture and figurative arts such as Faith Ringgold, Betye Saar, Joyce Scott Barkley Hendricks, Benny Andrews, and more. This movement shaped how we see Black bodies in artwork today, specifically in contemporary art. We see Kara Walker and her Black and White siholettes depicting the slave era, Simone Leigh in her ceramic bust representing African & Black American women and Amy Sherald in her portraits of Black figures, demonstrating how Barkley Hendricks in his portraits the everyday life of Black culture in their contemporary times.

My research has given me ways to see styles incorporated by artist of today, allowing me to curate exhibitions that focuses around contemporary art that highlights portraiture and figure art in the Black American experience.

I hope that this exposure brings in a dialogue between portraiture and figurative art within the Black aesthetic and how it identities Black people.