Long Island-based artist Christian Nicklaus cites his Celtic roots as an important influence, and that iconography is certainly prominent. Knotted, serpentine creatures occupy many of his mixed-media canvases, forming a dense web that sometimes overwhelms other visual elements. But if cultural heritage informs this facet of his work, many other features of Nicklaus’s artistic vocabulary are culled from personal experience. His contorted Celtic creatures cohabitate with techniques informed by extensive training in printmaking, Intaglio etching, graffiti-informed writing and drippings, pasted photographs and text, and cartoon-inspired figures. This rich assortment of symbols conveys elaborate and often conflicting meanings. They appear to float in frequently-intersecting planes over alternating backgrounds of red, blue and earth tones, thereby adding one more emotive cue to the mix. Indeed, this distinctly postmodern collision of disparate aesthetic codes offers an opportunity to viewers to learn an engaging new language. 

Christian Nicklaus received his MFA in Printmaking from Marywood University, in Scranton, PA. He has had numerous solo and group shows and his work has been featured in several publications.