Hej, čau!

I’m Nicola.

I draw in graphite, mostly the human body, from my studio apartment in Norrköping, Sweden. I am a standalone, independent artist with no art degree or gallery representation. The art world sometimes feels like it requires a password and cloak to enter, but I decided to throw my hat in the ring regardless.

You have already seen my favourite piece, big and central at the top of my homepage. My conspiracy theorists, I call them.

At some point my conspiracy theorists probably had a good reason to believe the world was out to get them. Just like there is a good reason behind everything people do. That reason has always been what I’ve been looking for: the why. The truth behind human behaviour beyond moralisation or labels.

Where did this come from?

Between the ages of sixteen and eighteen, I worked as a nurse’s aide. All day, I saw naked people under fluorescent lighting, between a rock and a hard place emotionally. It changed what I thought a body was. This defined what my work is today.

Sweden has a very clothed culture. Unlike Finns, we wear clothes even in the sauna. And we don’t talk about feelings either.

Boring, I say.

My figures just exist, having the features they have. I draw them nude for the same reason I draw them at all: nudity adds a vulnerability to the work, and I’m usually exploring the mind’s vulnerabilities, so the two tend to fit.

I should say: I’m never calling out anybody but myself. Everything I make is a self-portrait, even if it doesn’t look like it, and everything I write about others is about me.

I spent a year trying to write this text, and concluded artists have got to be pretending. I don’t draw because I want to explore the juxtaposition between the fragility of permanence and antidisestablishmentarianism. I tried on the artist™ persona and tried to talk like a curator. The closest I ever got to formal art education was when my aunt, babysitting, carried me through the halls of the Art Academy of Latvia after hours. I just happen to draw. I always have.

Every one of my old drawings has tape residue on the back, because I never thought of them as worth anything. That changed last year, when I drew a portrait of a friend’s late father as a birthday gift. He brought it to the funeral and set it beside the urn.

After that, I registered a business, built a website, and probably got in over my head. But here we are.

What do I want?

I want to make something interesting. Something your guests will ask about, maybe laugh at.

I’m not here to make you feel good about your body or your mind in the way that implies something was wrong with them to begin with. I think most of what we call abnormal is just something we don’t understand yet.

– Nicola Engström, 2026, Norrköping