Nicholas Kriefall: Abtsract Artist
A native to the Midwest, I've had a passion for art since I was four and "helped" my mother with her final drawing when she was an art student. Looking at the bright yellow addition to her charcoal figure, instead of scolding the act, she simply took the marker and led me to a blank sheet of paper. After that, whether it was drawing a doodle in a class notebook or the self-made comic books that filled my drawers, I couldn't stop creating. It wasn't until my later years of college that I learned I had an interest in painting. Slowly, I became more abstract as an artist, and my themes and palette changed before my eyes....

I have always been drawn to nature, be it the sea that stemmed from childhood trips to the coast and a young introduction to snorkeling, or the rock formations out west during summer excursions. Along with learning about Hemingway through my father, his tale of an old man battling elements beyond him, and the fact that we know more about foreign worlds than our own, the encompassing truth and mystery of our planet's identity has ever fascinated me.

My work conveys the relationship between us and the key elements of nature, whether hostile or dependent, and the delicate balance of how we coincide with each other. Using colors, shapes, and texture over multiple layers, I explore the comfort and animosity of a place revisited or newly imagined, continuously experimenting with visual depth, and incorporating a certain emotion as a map spills from mind to the canvas.