Born in Boston, MA, in 1982. Lives and works in New York.
Nick Atkins’ work, which integrates painting, film, sculptural installation, and fashion, draws on historic references, pop iconography, and his own idiosyncratic visual vocabulary. Both playful and arch, his practice employs techniques of appropriation and montage to disrupt recognizable imagery and storylines.
His large-scale, site-specific installations gesture at world building, often populated by characters and kinetic objects from his imagination. With his sculptures, Atkins frequently contrasts scale and mass with fragility and temporality, using materials and themes that signal ecological concern.
In a wink to the digital realm, his crude, humorous paintings often depict the collision between cartoon characters—expressing joie de vivre and sexual deviance—and real world malaise. For his latest series of paintings, Cleopatra’s Cat, images of Cleopatra are lifted from magazines and posters and juxtaposed to examine questions of iconicity and humor.
In 2004, Atkins received a Design B.F.A. from the School of Visual Arts, New York. His work has recently been exhibited at Mucciaccia Gallery (New York, 2020) and as part of The Newsstand in Ocean of Images: New Photography at MoMA, New York (2015). Since 2013, he has presented his work in guerrilla-style interventions across the United States at venues including Entrance Gallery, Procell, The National Arts Club, James Fuentes, and muddguts. ln 2019, he produced a collaborative clothing collection with Comme des Garcons. He is one of the lead graphic designers for Supreme since 2015.
