Everlyn Nicodemus is a Tanzanian-born artist, writer, and curator, based in Edinburgh, Scotland.[4]
Everlyn Nicodemus | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1954 |
| Education | Stockholm University (1978–1982), Berlin University of the Arts (1988), Middlesex University (2007–2012)[2] |
| Known for | |
| Spouse(s) | Unknown (divorced); Kristian Romare (died 2015)[1] |
| Awards |
|
Early life and career
editNicodemus initially enrolled in teacher training school, but eloped to marry a Swedish economist working in Tanzania.[1] The pair moved to Sweden in 1973, where, influenced by her experiences of everyday racism, she enrolled in Stockholm University in 1978 to study social anthropology.[5]
While back in Tanzania doing fieldwork, Nicodemus started making art in response to her discomfort with anthropology. This quickly led to a solo exhibition of paintings and poems at the National Museum of Tanzania in Dar es Salaam in 1980.[5]
After divorcing her first husband, Nicodemus married Kristian Romare, a Swedish art historian, with whom she moved to Edinburgh in 2008.[2]
Her work includes paintings, collages, mixed-media assemblages, and poetry, and has been informed by racism, trauma, PTSD, and recovery.[6] She completed her PhD on African Modern Art and Black Cultural Trauma at Middlesex University in 2012[7]
Nicodemus won the Freelands Foundation Award in 2022,[3] which supported the first retrospective of her work, at the National Galleries of Scotland, from September 2024 to May 2025.[4] Her painting Självporträtt, Åkersberga was acquired by the National Portrait Gallery, London in 2022,[8] and became the first painted self-portrait by a black female artist in the gallery's collection.[2]
References
edit- ^ a b c "'They told me I was a savage' – the unstoppable painter Everlyn Nicodemus". The Guardian.
- ^ a b c "Everlyn Nicodemus,". Ben Uri Research Unit.
- ^ a b "Freelands Award 2022".
- ^ a b "Everlyn Nicodemus". National Galleries of Scotland.
- ^ a b "A Woman in the World: Everlyn Nicodemus". post (Museum of Modern Art).
- ^ "Silent Strength 36". The Arts Council Collection.
- ^ "Everlyn Nicodemus". Richard Saltoun.
- ^ "Everlyn Nicodemus ('Självporträtt, Åkersberga') by Everlyn Nicodemus". National Portrait Gallery.