Joel Nichols

Joel Nichols is a Birmingham-born, Winnipeg-based interdisciplinary artist working in painting, ceramics, and printmaking. Rooted in their biracial Jamaican heritage and queer identity, their work explores intimacy, vulnerability, and the politics of representation.
Through large-scale portraits and process-based inquiry, Joel challenges fixed narratives and conventional roles between artist, subject, and viewer. Their practice is grounded in a blend of critical thought, and emotional depth, treating art-making as a relational space where care, tension, and the need to see and be seen unfold.
Viewing the studio as a borderland, a space for embracing complexity, contradiction, and open-endedness, Joel’s work resists controlling meaning. Instead, it invites viewers to approach with patience and vulnerability, fostering moments of mutual recognition and transformation.

Personal website.