Nicole Killian

Nicole Killian’s work uses graphic design, publishing, video, objects and installation to investigate how the structures of the internet, mobile messaging, and shared online platforms affect contemporary interaction and shape cultural identity from a queer perspective. She is interested in the repetition, looping, and dissemination of content. She thinks about catnip and bird toys, scratching and the depths (or voids) of the desktop folder.

Nicole has exhibited at Sediment in Richmond, CAVE in Detroit, Arcadia Missa in London, Present Works in Milwaukee, Little Berlin in Philadelphia, Embassy in Los Angeles, Sadie Halie Projects in Brooklyn, Nomade Gallery in Hangzhou, and Dreamlands: Immersive Cinema and Art at the Whitney Museum of American Art for Lorna Mills’ Ways of Something. Her writing has been published by WOW HUH, The Enemy, Carets + Sticks (now Contemporary Art Review LA), The Journal of Feminist Scholarship, The Theo Westenberger Foundation, and in the third edition of Terry Barrett’s Criticizing Art. A current essay, “The Emotional Potential of Girls Presented on the Internet as Object” will be included by Exempt Works (formerly Penny-ante Editions) in Modern Behaviours. She has spoken at the Royal College of Art in London, Yale School of Art, Kunsthall Stavanger, Maryland Institute College of Art and the Cranbrook Academy of Art. She previously was a visiting artist at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design from 2011–2013.

Nicole appreciates a good karaoke performance and is co-creator of annual publication ISSUES with Sarah Faith Gottesdiener. She is currently co-director of the Design, Visual Communications MFA and Assistant Professor in the Department of Graphic Design at Virginia Commonwealth University.