BIO
Nicole Parker is an artist, educator, and curator whose work centers on community, representation, and social justice. She earned her BFA from Wayne State University in Detroit and her MFA from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Parker currently serves as Exhibits Program Coordinator for the Austin Public Library in Texas.
Her artwork combines photography, mixed media, vintage imagery, and irreverent drawings to examine the emotional and psychological experiences of women shaped by Midwestern culture. Blending glamour, humor, and critique, Parker’s work challenges learned silence, self-criticism, and the enduring influence of outdated gender norms.
Parker has held teaching, curatorial, and arts-administration positions at Marygrove College, 555 Nonprofit Gallery and Studios, and the George Washington Carver Museum and Cultural Center. She supports emerging and mid-career artists through grant consulting, exhibition development, professional development, and community-based programming, and has taught photography, sculpture, fabric dyeing, recycled-materials art, and mixed-media collage.
Her work has been exhibited in group shows at ArtUs Co., Detroit Artists Market, Detroit Contemporary Gallery, the Virgil H. Carr Cultural Center, and Madonna University. She has also participated in collaborative performances at the Toledo Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit. From 2021 through 2024, her designs were featured in Austin Creative Reuse’s Reuse on the Runway.