Growing up in the suburbs of Detroit, MI., Abstract expressionist, Nicole Gavin's, exposure to culture and history fostered a lifelong love of the arts. Her grandmother was an artist and family have been large contributors to the Detroit Institute of Arts so she has been engulfed in the art world since a child. Although she never picked up a paintbrush until August 2010, she explored a variety of artistic endeavors while growing up and attended a high school for the performing and visual arts.

Last year, under the influence of a local Houston artist, Nicole decided to attempt painting as a new hobby. She paints as a therapeutic medium, for her massive Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder, because it seems to be, "the one thing I can concentrate on for more than 10 minutes". A year later, it has become her obsession (painting everyday) and she now shows frequently in the Houston area.

Known most for her color schemes, Nicole's colors and textures from which she creates, have been dubbed as, "passionate, visceral, structural, immediate, raw, spontaneous, chaotic, colorful, urban and soulful", creating a unique visual language with depth and feeling. "You feel her energy jump from the canvas". She is diverse and unpredictable, using different materials, themes, textures and techniques. As a novice, but truly gifted painter, this has been an experimentation period for her and a point of self-discovery in her developing artwork. Nicole has about a dozen different styles to her art and it rightfully reflects her unfocused, eclectic and random persona. She has been said to be, "all over the place"....and visibly, so is her art.

In Nicole's creations, you will find abstract artworks, rich in patterns, geometric shapes and forms, organic design elements and symbols, bohemian undertones, vivid color and a high level of texture —all of which carry these paintings beyond a standard, strictly visual art experience. Her paintings invite touch and reward with a multi-sensory experience. She creates her paintings with joy and reverence, as a celebration of love and life. She has a personal and emotional connection with the number 11 and you will see this number frequently in her work.

Nicole is influenced by abstract expressionists, particularly Jackson Pollock, Ad Rheinhardt, Lee Krasner, Jean Dubuffet, Cy Twombly, Mark Rothko, as well as neo-expressionists, Bansky, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Julian Schnabel. All of Nicole's work is original, as she works from life, drawings, photographs, and a lot of imagination. The subjects of her study are "the world around us, the world inside us, and the new realities we create in the process of relating to nature and to each other".

Nicole has been featured as the Nov 2011 Highlight Mod Artist for Houston's Modern Epiphanies: http://modernepiphanies.com/?p=745. She has also shown at Houston Press Artopia 2012, several local "Canvases and Cocktails" events, 2011 Houston Wine Fest, 2404 Montrose Gallery Holiday Market, and other local fundraising events. You can view Nicole's work at www.facebook.com/ArtistNicoleGavin.com and http://nicolegavinart.etsy.com.