Contributed by Sharon Butler / This month, Two Coats of Paint is glad to welcome Nichole van Beek to the Residency Program, from March 16–20. For a show at the Morris N. Flecker Memorial Gallery in 2017, when she still lived and worked in NYC, Matthew Neil Gehring aptly introduced her paintings as “macrocosmic encounters with impossible and tantalizing illusions situated in a space that is once grounded in the familiar, the natural, yet is infinitely expansive.” She moved from NYC to the hollows of the Appalachian Mountains several years ago and found new content and media for her art practice, but she has retained the fine balance Gehring described between the big picture and smaller ones.
Working from direct observation in biologically diverse public parks and wilderness areas, she makes paintings that fuse her concerns about ecology and her penchant for handmade materials with landscape painting. She makes her own paint by extracting dyes from locally foraged and cultivated materials. Unlike conventional pigments, organic colorants are regenerative and biodegradable, so they continue to morph after the artist has finished her work, shifting and deepening over time, giving each painting a developmental lifespan of its own.
Nichole has explored sustainable studio materials including mycocomposites, kombucha biofilm, and DIY bioplastics – all part of her effort to align artistic production with the principles of a circular and ideally self-sustaining economy. One priority, evident in her composition of paint, has been to use locally available, biodegradable materials to reduce emissions, pollution, and waste – and for good reason. Relentless industrial extraction has devastated the natural environment of the Appalachians, which now face new threats from the rapid spread of data centers. Against this backdrop, Nichole sees her careful attention to native flora, fauna, and fungi, and their interrelated habitats as a form of witness and advocacy, acknowledging, celebrating, and defending the abundant life that shares the imperiled countryside.
Nichole holds a BFA from Cooper Union and an MFA from UC Santa Barbara. A former New Yorker, she has lived in Morgantown, West Virginia, since 2022, where she teaches painting and Art and Environment at West Virginia University. Her work has been supported by the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and residencies including those at the Jentel Foundation and Socrates Sculpture Park.
Nichole van Beek, Two Coats of Paint Artist Residency, 22-19 41st Avenue, 6th Floor, Studio #10, Long Island City, NY. March 16 – 20, 2026. Please join us for an Open Studio on Wednesday, March 18, 5–7 pm. For more information, or to arrange a studio visit, please contact: STAFF@twocoatsofpaint.com. Please put STUDIO VISIT in the subject line. Follow Nichole on Instagram @nicholevanbeek
Upcoming:
“From the Ground Up,” curated by Erika B Hess at Warnes Contemporary, 52 2nd Avenue, Suite 40, Brooklyn, NY. April 23 through June 14, 2026.
Natural Dye Painting Workshop, Faculty, The Pittsburgh Botanical Garden, Summer 2026.
“Art and Environment,” course at WVU. Nichole’s students will install work in the Core Arboretum. Opening event: April 18, 2026.
Studio Playlist:
“I’ve been trying to move away from Spotify (since they don’t pay artists very much) and have been buying records! My most recent acquisitions include albums by Helado Negro, Dope Lemon, and Rubblebucket. I listen to podcasts too: Up First, On the Media, and Throughline most frequently.”
About the author: Sharon Butler is a painter, publisher of Two Coats of Paint, and director of the Two Coats of Paint Residency Program.
