Nicole Rivieccio-Quarles

Artist Statement

The central theme of my artistic work has been focused on my difficulty in bridging my inner mystic with my inner intellectual. The conversation about resolving this tension seems as old as recorded Western history.

In my earlier practice, I was searching for equilibrium between a grounded, earthly identity—rooted in history and ancestry—and an orientation toward the divine, the unknowable, the realm of spirit. I pursued this inquiry through self-portraiture, the use of traditional Italian materials, and both esoteric and familiar symbolic systems. The process culminated in an articulation of my fractured self attempting integration while higher realms hovered beyond my reach.
An optimism and longing for integrating these opposing aspects of me coexisted with a suspicion that the divine might be inert, illusory, or unreliable. My attraction to transcendence was pierced by cynicism, so I kept one toe over the threshold hoping for and fearing surrender.
Years into this work, a rupture altered my personal and artistic path. During the COVID-19 pandemic, I learned my biological father was a deceased sperm donor. In response, I turned toward psychology, becoming a Marriage and Family Therapist while continuing my artistic practice.
Here, my fractured sensibilities were caught between the scientific, empirical, and materially grounded, and the intuitive terrain of soul and spirit. In my recent work, I explore the unease of attempting to bridge these realms through material contrasts: earthly forms like landscapes, stone, sand, and ceramic paired with celestial imagery—wind, sky, angelic beings. The work oscillates between viewpoints: the divine gaze cast downward upon the earthly body, and the embodied self looking upward. The tension of being held down while the force of intuition threatens to levitate me.