Age: 24 • Lives and creates: Stow • Learned: BFA from Ohio University with printmaking concentration
Story by Amanda Koehn
Nicole Malcolm creates art that’s deeply personal, intimate and aimed at seeking stronger connections to those close to her.
While the mediums in which she works have shifted over her college and post-college years – she’s recently gravitated to papermaking and mixed-media installations – it has always been self-reflective and connected to her current environment and place in life.
“I think space and a sense of home has really consistently come out … and light and atmosphere,” Malcolm tells Canvas in her home studio in Stow, adding that her recent pieces have been about “the connections you make with people that aren’t exactly family.”
Growing up in North Canton, Malcolm says in elementary school, she would ask to skip recess to do more art projects in the classroom. Always interested in making “really emotional, really personal work,” she primarily painted during her time at Hoover High School, she recalls.
However, once she got to Ohio University in Athens and ended up in a Foundations class that covered printmaking taught by Melissa Haviland, who is chair of the OU printmaking department, she connected to the medium immediately.
Then, for her senior Bachelor of Fine Arts thesis, she wanted to experiment with 3D mixed-media work with the idea to bring people into a space built like a dorm room to show it. In her project, she reflected on her time at college – starting with her freshman beginnings when she, “had a classic coming-of-age, getting older thing. I went through my first real breakup and things like that. I didn’t have any friends there and I was by myself and I had a random roommate,” she says.
To integrate into the Athens community, she began attending open mic nights, first by herself and later with friends. She connected with Bruce Dalzell, a well-known community member who runs the open mic nights, and for her BFA, she asked him to write a song with her. She placed their lyrics on her handmade paper, and her installation included headphones so visitors could listen to it – all in the mock dorm room inside the gallery, adorned with string lights and offering various artistic reflections on her college experience.
“It’s just like a culmination of my time in Athens basically,” she says.
After graduating in 2021, Malcolm began working at The Morgan Conservatory in Cleveland. She received an Ohio Arts Council grant to work with Tom Balbo, the founder and artistic director of the Morgan, on papermaking. She’s also on the teaching artists’ roster at Zygote Press in Cleveland.
She says since graduating, something that comes up for her personally and, consequently, in her work is feeling further away from her close friends. They don’t get to see each other as much because as people grow up, they often move elsewhere and become busy with adult life. So, in December 2022, when she celebrated her first solo show outside of college, she aimed to connect to her friends – both through her artwork and by creating an installation experience to bring her friends together for the opening. Her show, “Please come to my party…,” was at the 78th Street Studios on Cleveland’s west side.
“A lot of it was birthday party-based and inviting all of your friends to things,” she says of her mixed-media show that featured both new work and art made at OU. “Like deep down, it’s literally a grasp for me to have everyone I care about in one room at the same time because it’s such a rarity that that ever happens anymore.”
Looking at pieces and photos from “Please come to my party…” you may feel sentimental about your own college memories and relationships there. It’s not dissimilar to listening to a Taylor Swift song (Malcolm is a fan) and despite the lyrics seeming specific and personal, there’s a quality that makes it easy to relate them to your own life and feelings. You get a glimpse into the artist’s life, while simultaneously seeking introspection.
Malcolm began a graduate program in printmaking at Indiana University Bloomington in the summer, however, she had to leave this fall, first due to mental health challenges and then her physical health as autoimmune issues flared up. She returned to Stow, where she lives with her partner, and she continues to create.
She says while she struggled with having to leave her program, she knows she made the right choice for her well-being and wants to reapply when she’s able to give it her full attention.
“I’m very, to be honest, hard on myself about things like that,” she says. “I’m like a next-step person and I’ve been so involved since the second I finished my undergrad. And so, having to take this step back for a second is something I’m not used to. … Also it’s something that I wanted to talk about and be honest about, and I think something that can be a little more normalized because it happens. You can’t really put stuff like this aside.”
Another challenge she’s faced is not feeling like she fits into a specific category of artist. However, she says she’s learning not to question herself as much – when “you just make what you want to make” have been some of her best moments and creations so far.
She recently showed work at The Morgan and is applying to some juried shows. And, Malcolm is further honing in on papermaking – which she explains is a long, physical process, but well worth it.
“I think that there could be something really strong about it being all one material,” she says of her recent creations. “… I feel like now that I’ve learned how to make paper, I can’t not do it. It’s just the exact thing that I feel like I was like meant to work with.”
See more at @nicole_malcolm
“I enjoyed every minute of working with Nicole Malcolm during her time at Ohio University. She was a tremendous community member, a strong employee and an inventive young artist. It was exciting to see how Nicole thought through the medium of papermaking to create her effective thesis artwork.”
Melissa Haviland, professor of art, Ohio University
