About

My painting practice investigates the intersection of art-historical tradition and the hyper-mediated visual culture we occupy today. I use portraiture, figuration, and familiar compositional structures as a way to think about how images shape what we see, remember, and believe about ourselves. By placing traditional painting techniques next to imagery pulled from popular culture, I explore how perception fractures, how memory becomes unreliable, and how identity is constantly reconstructed through what we consume. 

In my recent work, I turn to media culture as a way to reconsider the role of portraiture today. Sourcing material from movies, television, meme culture, and fragments of my childhood, I fragment and reassemble figures into disjointed forms and heightened color palettes. These portraits exist in a state of tension: rooted in familiar archetypes yet estranged through their reconstruction. They point to the way we’re all shaped—and sometimes distorted—by the images around us, asking what it means to be perceived, to perform identity, and to participate in an endless cycle of producing and circulating visual content. 

Nicole Trimble is an Associate Professor of Media Communications at the University of Cincinnati Blue Ash College and the co-founder of Bright Wall Collective, a mural and design studio based in Southwest Ohio. Her work spans both gallery exhibition and public art, including more than 30 large-scale murals across Ohio, and publications such as Movers & Makers, AEQAI, Studio Visit, and Professional Artist Magazine. She holds an MFA from the University of Cincinnati’s College of DAAP and a BFA in Painting and Printmaking from Miami University.

For inquiries, please email b.nicole.trimble@gmail.com.