Anne Faith Nicholls

Strange Botanica

2016

Anne Faith Nicholls is a painter living and working in California, based in Venice Beach and Palm Springs. She is originally from Victoria, Canada. Her original paintings have been featured in private collections, galleries, and museums throughout the world, and her illustration work has been featured in many art-related publications. Nicholls’ early career success began in the California Pop Surrealist and "Low Brow" movements, appearing regularly in Juxtapoz Magazine, and as a Van's Artist Brand Ambassador. However, she hesitates to confine herself to recent contemporary movements, citing inspiration from Surrealist and traditional painting as more key to her work. She currently identifies most closely with the Neo-Surrealism and Neo-Folk movements. Nicholls was born with a backwards heart and had 3 open-heart surgeries to correct her ailment. Naturally, art was a mellow and solitary activity that she gravitated to from a very young age. Her formal artistic education began soon after when her mother noticed her acute interest in the arts. As an only child with a working mother, Nicholls subsequently spent much of her school years quietly working on projects and paintings. After receiving accolades and scholarships in high school, she entered Seattle Pacific University as an Art and Business double major. She eventually received her Bachelor’s of Fine Arts in Illustration from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, CA. with a specialization in 20th Century Art History. She also completed a Study Abroad Semester in Italy with the Academy of Art University where she studied classical painting, and had a brief internship at the Peggy Guggenheim Museum on the Grand Canal in Venice. Since then her obsession with travel and seeing the greatest artworks in person has compelled her to study great paintings throughout France, Germany, Hungary, The Netherlands, Austria, The Czech Republic, Italy, Canada, Spain, Belgium, Brussels and Latin America. These experiences have created a classically trained oil painter, one who has developed a unique technique of utilizing both oil paint and acrylic paint to achieve a signature layered look with a saturated, antiqued, color pallet. Described as a Neo-Surrealist, or Neo-Folk-Surrealist artist, Nicholls’ work is both dark and enlightening, pulling from her personal experience and her own beliefs. The ‘folksy’ feel of much of her work lends an inviting familiarity which draws the viewer in to its nuances. With recurring themes such as love, anger, cleansing, and the environment Nicholls offers food for thought that many can identify with yet she nonetheless creates these images from a highly personalized narrative place.