Nicole Bourgea is a third generation artist and resident of the greater Washington DC area. She attended Providence College on a full merit-based Martin Luther King Scholarship, graduating with the highest academic record in Studio Art and Magna Cum Laude honors bestowed by the Liberal Arts Honors Program. Upon graduation, Bourgea was nominated to receive several awards including the All-American Scholar Collegiate Award, Who’s Who Among Students in American Universities and Colleges, placement on the National Deans List, and election to the Rhode Island Alpha Chapter of the Phi Sigma Tau International Honor Society in Philosophy. She continues her education at such institutions as the Torpedo Factory and Washington Studio School.
Bourgea’s involvement in the professional art world includes group and solo exhibitions, teaching and volunteer activities, competitions and private commissions. Her past work has been shown at Hunt Cavanaugh Gallery of RI, The Yellow Barn Gallery of MD, Discovery Gallery in Bethesda, The Irish Inn at Glen Echo, and Artprize International based in Grand Rapid, MI. While she maintains regular exhibition opportunities, Bourgea has spent the past six years working out of her Chevy Chase studio primarily on commissions from schools, law firms, interior designers and private clients. She enjoys the challenge of applying her artistic vision to the unique subjects that these opportunities present.
Bourgea is a contemporary expressionist painter who works primarily in oil. She believes highlighting the natural romance of the ordinary, and her paintings have often been described as transforming the mundane into the sublime. By focusing her attention on microcosmic views (be it a single person sitting for a portrait or a string of vignettes in a series of cityscapes), she attempts to indicate a whole that is larger than the sum of its parts.
