Nicole Duet

I was born and raised in New Orleans, and from an early age was entranced by the way the city and it\'s people transformed en masse at one time of year. Mardi Gras is a magic time. I remember going to the parades at night and feeling taken out of myself by the color, the fire and light, the music and costumed madness. It was an experience of the very thin veil between the familiar and the unknown- sometimes dangerous, sometimes ecstatic. Now in my work I am interested in moments where being slips into the revelation of something unexpected. The smallest moments take on mythic significance when seen in these terms. My paintings begin from the point of view that identity and the relationship between inner and outer worlds are unstable. This instability is connected to perception.

For me, the interplay between the painted and the photographed, between the seen and the sensory experience is mysterious and fascinating. I am drawn to photograph, and then subsequently paint moments where an underlying pulse of possibility hovers at the edges of what we immediately recognize. At these liminal moments it is possible for us to become lost, transformed, or transported by the act of seeing. Painting is a way of finding my way through and communicating the indefiniteness of experience.

Nicole Duet lives and works in Reseda, and lately feels one foot working its way back to the New Orleans she grew up in.