Nicholas Emery was born in the West Indies and grew up across the Caribbean, Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, and European regions. These formative years, shaped by varied cultures and landscapes, imbue his work with an enduring exploration of the human connection to land and the imprint we leave upon it.
Nicholas has been a painter for three decades, consistently devoted to the medium while also creating sculpture with barbed wire and found objects and making short films. His artwork has been collected primarily in the U.S. and the Caribbean, and he has participated in solo and group exhibitions and artist residencies, (Vermont Studio Center, Grin City, Prairie Rhonde) throughout his career. Nicholas holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts.
Nicholas received an Andy Warhol Foundation grant to create a collaborative art film based on his painting series The Controlled Wild, work rooted in Suncor oil refinery and fortress conservation at Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge in north Denver. The film was projected in winter 2021 on the History Colorado Museum and on the Denver Clock Tower as part of Night Lights Denver.
In 2005, Nicholas returned to Trinidad and Tobago, where he lived and worked for the next decade. There he had three solo exhibitions with Softbox Gallery, Glimpse and Urban Introspective and Medulla Gallery Decay. He maintains a relationship with Softbox Gallery and had a solo exhibit there in 2024, Magic Memory Place.
Nicholas maintained a studio in Globeville, north Denver, a former industrial slaughterhouse district, where he co-founded the artist collective bloc presents, co-curated large community events, and exhibited in GRACe Gallery. He recently relocated to Oklahoma City where he continues to make work and will begin teaching studio art at the OU School of Visual Art (SoVA) in the Fall.