Nicole Strasburg

Nicole's original sketches measured 1-1/4" square. For her project with Richard, the sketches were blown up on a computer. A reductive woodcutting ensued: each layer printed had more wood removed-there was no going back once the wood was taken away.

Nicole Strasburg
Woodcut monoprints
Nicole Strasburg was born in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1966. In the early 1970’s, the Strasburg family moved to Santa Barbara, California when Nicole’s father accepted a position at the University as a set and lighting design instructor. He had studied as a painter and received a degree in painting from the University of Utah. Nicole was greatly influenced by her father as a painter; the act of his painting, the solitary intimacy, the smell of turpentine, and the proximity to creative people all worked to ignite a creative spark in her mind.

Nicole was initially drawn to mathematics and had tentative sights set on a career in engineering. In her junior year of high school, however, Nicole was taken from a beginning drawing course and put directly into an advanced placement class. She worked primarily in graphite creating portraits of friends and of her self to master the art of drawing, At the urging of her art instructor, she completed an artist’s portfolio during her senior year to help gain entrance into a university. Nicole applied for and won a fellowship to the College of Creative Studies art department at UCSB. Still working primarily in graphite, it wasn’t until her junior year of college that she began her “long struggle with learning how to use oil and color.” Nicole completed a bachelor of arts degree in painting and drawing at UCSB and a few years later she spent a semester abroad in Paris, France.

Nicole’s work is increasingly sought after by collectors and has appeared on the cover and within the Sundance catalog as a popular sales item. Her aptitude with numbers compliments the business of marketing and making a living from art. Combining her left and right brain talents has made Nicole Strasburg a very successful living artist.