Nicole Bommarito

Nicole Bommarito's current work is concerned with the body, communication, pop culture's seductive superficiality and the collision of inner and outer worlds. She juxtaposes kitschy or contemporary imagery and objects with depictions of the body and human relationships rendered in naturalistic modes or materials to discuss the conflict between the distractions of culture and the needs of the spirit. She works both symbolically and structurally, layering high and low media and content in complex 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional figurative and conceptual paintings and sculptures.

One major theme is the body shell, depicted both representationally as a sculpted or painted human or animal form and symbolically as an ornate housing or frame which encloses a scene while simultaneously acting as a supporting structure for elements which visually and symbolically reference the interior content. A second dominant concept is societal incursions into the spirit, embodied as visual artifacts of mass communication which envelop or intrude into objects representing the body or the soul.