Antonio Scott Nichols’ work explores and challenges conventional uses of history, present-day social and political culture, and speculative & imagined futures in fragmented visual storytelling. His works seek to evoke feelings of power, freedom, and ownership by romanticizing notions of escape and autonomy.
 
Nichols transfigures 1920s historical context into “what if” narratives of black liberation. He believes imagination is the foundation on which new worlds are built and utilizes this practice to explore new pathways and events that could unfold following “set” moments in time. In his most recent exhibition, The Wayward Passage, Nichols grappled with the Great Migration and other historical benchmarks along with concurrent artifacts (such as the Atlanta Daily World and Crisis Magazine) from the 1920s, using them as contextual foundation – a jumping off point from which an original narrative around interplanetary migration to Saturn could develop. In visually juxtaposing the experience of those who went to Saturn with those who stayed on Earth, he challenged the recorded narrative of mainstream historians who have traditionally focused on those who migrated to the North over those who remained in the South. Through painting and collage, Nichols explores how specific moments in time shape intra and extrapersonal stories, and how the embodiment and recording of these stories shapes communities and culture.
 
To this end, Nichols emulates black music’s methods of sampling and collaboration to engage with many art forms. He explores the potential reality of Sun Ra’s claim/belief about being from Saturn and utilizes imagery from George Clintons’ ‘Mothership Connection’ as a representation of imagined futures. Nichols also studies the work of James Van Der Zee, who is seen as a key visual archivist of 1920s history and culture, and feels emboldened to assume that same role in these new worlds he is creating. To assume this mantle, Nichols draws inspiration from sci-fi writer Octavia Butler’s use of speculative fiction, engaging with future, present and past in a unique way - not as linear periods of time but rather occurring simultaneously. This process of uncovering, excavating, and reconfiguring allows Nichols to create nuanced narratives, guided and not governed by what has or has not been, but by what could be.
 
At the core of his practice is the belief that new futures/possibilities can’t exist unless we have the audacity to imagine them. If a person can look at his paintings and recognize that though going to Saturn is impossible, imagining yourself in a place you don't have access to is not, then he is on the right track.
 
Antonio Scott Nichols was born in 1997 in Atlanta, Georgia, and currently lives and works in Philadelphia, PA. Nichols earned his Bachelor of Art from Bard College.

Antonio Scott Nichols’ work explores and challenges conventional uses of history, present-day social and political culture, and speculative & imagined futures in fragmented visual storytelling. His works seek to evoke feelings of power, freedom, and ownership by romanticizing notions of escape and autonomy.
 
Nichols transfigures 1920s historical context into “what if” narratives of black liberation. He believes imagination is the foundation on which new worlds are built and utilizes this practice to explore new pathways and events that could unfold following “set” moments in time. In his most recent exhibition, The Wayward Passage, Nichols grappled with the Great Migration and other historical benchmarks along with concurrent artifacts (such as the Atlanta Daily World and Crisis Magazine) from the 1920s, using them as contextual foundation – a jumping off point from which an original narrative around interplanetary migration to Saturn could develop. In visually juxtaposing the experience of those who went to Saturn with those who stayed on Earth, he challenged the recorded narrative of mainstream historians who have traditionally focused on those who migrated to the North over those who remained in the South. Through painting and collage, Nichols explores how specific moments in time shape intra and extrapersonal stories, and how the embodiment and recording of these stories shapes communities and culture.
 
To this end, Nichols emulates black music’s methods of sampling and collaboration to engage with many art forms. He explores the potential reality of Sun Ra’s claim/belief about being from Saturn and utilizes imagery from George Clintons’ ‘Mothership Connection’ as a representation of imagined futures. Nichols also studies the work of James Van Der Zee, who is seen as a key visual archivist of 1920s history and culture, and feels emboldened to assume that same role in these new worlds he is creating. To assume this mantle, Nichols draws inspiration from sci-fi writer Octavia Butler’s use of speculative fiction, engaging with future, present and past in a unique way - not as linear periods of time but rather occurring simultaneously. This process of uncovering, excavating, and reconfiguring allows Nichols to create nuanced narratives, guided and not governed by what has or has not been, but by what could be.
 
At the core of his practice is the belief that new futures/possibilities can’t exist unless we have the audacity to imagine them. If a person can look at his paintings and recognize that though going to Saturn is impossible, imagining yourself in a place you don't have access to is not, then he is on the right track.
 
Antonio Scott Nichols was born in 1997 in Atlanta, Georgia, and currently lives and works in Philadelphia, PA. Nichols earned his Bachelor of Art from Bard College.