Artist Statement:

Working primarily through linocut printmaking and painting, my practice is shaped by my ancestry, earth kinship, spirituality, and the anticolonial resistance of the Caribbean. My work is grounded in duality, the tension and harmony between polarities, specifically complementary and contrasting colors and within aspects of self and identity.

Raised between Ohio, Ecuador, and Florida, my practice reflects the multifaceted reality of straddling many worlds and identities simultaneously while living in diaspora. My process is centered on self reflection, where the process of creating serves as a mirror to support me in processing, identifying, unlearning and healing. I embrace experimenting with layering linocut relief prints on top of paintings and building stories often unseen or erased with each layer.

These works are anchored by portraits of hands, with hands serving as symbolic and literal sites of generational innovation, knowledge, and protection. Carved from linoleum and collaged on top of acrylic paintings, these multilayered works explore themes of reclamation and connection to diasporic foodways. These figurative portraits of women and two-spirit people across Ecuador, Haiti, Venezuela, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the United States confront the often-silenced stories of cooking, medicinal plant knowledge, and the culinary history of generational recipes buried through colonization and gendered labor. My aim is to expand the narratives of women, queer, and two-spirit people living in diaspora and the legacies they shape.

Bio:

Nicole Godreau Soria is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice explores reclamation, embodiment, and identity through linocut printmaking and painting. Their work has been included in group shows at the City of Casselberry, Casselberry, FL; The Leesburg Arts Center, Leesburg, FL; The Art Galleries at Austin Community College, Austin, TX; Woman Made Gallery, Chicago, IL; Art Center Sarasota, Sarasota, FL, Livermore Valley Performing Arts Center, Livermore, CA; SOMArts, San Francisco, CA; Gallery 300, Sebastopol, CA, and The Chapter House, online exhibition. Godreau Soria was awarded the 2021-22 California Arts Council Individual Artist Fellow Award. They hold a BSW from the University of Central Florida.

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