"I consider myself a storyteller. With layers of textures and images, my narratives emerge...
History is power. Few things seem more urgent today than retelling stories that help keep history alive and relevant. Remembering where we come from pays homage to our ancestors and plants seeds as gifts to our children. My mostly abstract narratives are meant to stimulate dialogue. They are intentionally vague compositions related to universal themes of humanity and personal experiences connected to my multicultural heritage. I often use iconography and textiles from the African diaspora as spiritual connection points to a resilient and vibrant heritage.
I am a mixed-media painter and a papermaker. I have been a working artist for over four decades, adding papermaking to my process in the early 2000s. Not long afterward, I started embedding antique lace and textiles into handmade paper, which became the basis of my mixed-media collages and paintings.
Integrating repurposed materials into my work was a natural progression because I grew up in a family who did all kinds of handwork, including carpentry, masonry, woodworking, ceramics, sculpture, crochet, knitting, and embroidery. What stands out most in my mind is my maternal grandmother showing me how to recycle textiles for new uses by deconstructing garments down to their threads. My family’s legacy serves, in part, to support my conscious practice of respecting the earth’s limited resources, which are now reflected in many of my works."
Rosalind Nzinga Vaughn-Nichol was born into a multi-generational family of artisans and craftsmen. She studied drawing and painting at Herron School of Art and Design, Indiana / Purdue University, Indianapolis, IN; received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from California State University Long Beach, Long Beach, CA; and a Master of Divinity in Pastoral Care, and a Master of Arts in Education from Oral Roberts University, Tulsa, OK. She presently lives in the northeastern United States.