Artist Biography

Nicole Clouston is a practice-based researcher and instructor who completed her Ph.D. in Visual Art at York University in Toronto. Based in Cambridge, Ontario, Nicole Clouston creates collaborative artworks that highlight how humans, microbes, and environments are deeply intertwined. Through sculpture, installation, and community projects, Nicole Clouston invites participants to notice the living materials that surround them every day. Whether teaching, mentoring, or exhibiting, she approaches each encounter as a chance to blur the boundaries between art and science, self and other. In recent projects, Nicole Clouston has worked with mud, water, and light-sensitive bacteria to trace the hidden movements that shape our shared world. Visitors are encouraged to slow down, look closely, and consider how their own bodies extend into the landscapes they move through. Nicole has exhibited across Canada and internationally, most recently in Detroit, Michigan. She was the artist in residence at the Coalesce Bio Art Lab at the University at Buffalo and the artist in residence at Idea Projects: Ontario Science Centre’s Studio Residencies at MOCA.