Biography

Nicole Geary is an American artist hailing from the green, swampy lands of north Florida. After earning a BFA in printmaking from the University of Florida, she moved to Texas to pursue a career in the arts. Nicole recently completed her MFA in printmaking at the University of South Dakota. She has exhibited in juried shows at venues including the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Spudnik Press Cooperative, and Washington Printmaker’s Gallery. Her prints are included in several collections, including the Proyecto´ace Print Collection in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She currently lives and works in San Antonio, Texas.

Themed Panel (Suggested)

Does uniformitarianism apply to memory? Geology and personal history in printmaking
The underlying methodology of geology is classically indebted to James Hutton and his theory of uniformitarianism. In one of science’s landmark events, Hutton interpreted the rocky formation at Siccar Point comprised of Old Red Sandstone accreted laterally atop vertical beds of Silurian greywacke to be an unconformity, revealing to humankind the idea of “deep time.” My thesis work as a graduate student in printmaking has been shaped by a combination of interests, including geological formations, stratigraphy and memory. The process of how humans form memories and create lasting impressions of events correlates interestingly to the processes of earth’s rates of sedimentation and compaction; perhaps where we see unconformities there is no “memory” of that event or time period in the history of the earth. As Hume’s Law states, “there can be no demonstrative arguments to prove, that those instances, of which we have had no experience, resemble those of which we have had experience.” In my proposal, I explore analogues to our experiences from within the body to what we see in the earth’s strata, comparing our physical and emotional responses to the processes that have shaped the earth now and in the past. My presentation and thesis work proposes that uniformitarianism as a methodology applies to the concept of memory, and is a creative function of science.