Sara Nickleson: Envision 2025 Award Winner

Sara Nickleson is the recipient of the Envision: Michigan Artist Initiative 2025 Award.

Nickleson was selected by a distinguished national panel of jurors: Juana Williams, art curator and writer based in Detroit, Michigan; Melinda Zacher Ronayne, former director of visual arts at the Interlochen Center for the Arts; and Parisa Ghaderi, assistant professor of graphic design at Shoreline Community College and winner of the 2023 Envision: Michigan Artist Initiative Award. Nickleson was presented with a $5,000 cash prize during the exhibition opening reception at Stamps Gallery on June 26, 2025.

In a statement about Nickleson’s work, the jury said: ​“Sara Nickleson’s ambitious paintings boldly invite us to explore our relationship with the unknown. At a time when the world is deeply divided, when diverse perspectives and experiences are being weaponized by fear, Nickleson’s paintings meticulously build another world — one mark, one brush stroke at a time. Layering colors and mark-making that draw on prehistoric forms and symbols, Nickleson seeks a new futurity that acknowledges the losses, and co-existence that build on our differences and commonalities. Sara has been consistently building her visual vocabulary and we are excited to see where she will go next.”

Inspired by prehistoric works of lost civilizations, Sara Nickleson’s painted figures exist in an extreme, fragile ecosystem that often merges with her subjects. Pushing the boundaries of figuration while also pursuing the pull of ancient, enigmatic forms is of particular interest to Nickleson, who also finds solace in building worlds shaped by her studies in consciousness, melancholia, and adaptation in the face of climate crisis.

“I have been focused on developing their physicality and understanding what these bodies are — their materiality and contemplative nature,” Nickleson says. 

Melding processes — in this case digital collage as a precursor to paint on canvas — is another interest.

“I allow instinctive mark making techniques to lead, as I transfer my imagery to canvas with oil paint,” she says.

Being selected as an Envision finalist has allowed Nickleson to further develop her layered imagery and complex landscapes. But she also sees it as an opportunity to connect with fellow artists, students, and viewers interested in her work.

“It’s given me the chance to talk to people about mental health and the challenges of that and what it’s like to express that creatively,” she says. ​“For a long time, I was really studying melancholy very closely. And I felt like I was able to make something that made me proud out of that.”

Nickleson received her BFA from the University of Windsor in Canada; a BID from the College for Creative Studies in Detroit; and an MFA in Painting from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. In addition to being an artist, she’s also a curator and gallery director who has worked as senior director at Library Street Collective Gallery in Detroit and as head curator and director of collections at the Design Exchange (DX) in Toronto. 

“It’s really interesting to be in Detroit, to be in Michigan, because I think that there’s more openness and more exploration than there is in some of these bigger cities where there’s a lot of pressure to maybe work in a certain way or, you know, there’s maybe more prominent movements that are affecting what people are doing and making,” she says. ​“I think that, at least in Detroit, and I think … throughout the state as well … there’s the chance to just really focus on what it is that you’re doing and try and really narrow in on what that is without all these outside influences.”

Envision: The 2025 Michigan Artists Initiative, featuring works by finalists Conor Fagan, Katie Mongoven, and Sara Nickleson, is on view at Stamps Gallery in downtown Ann Arbor through August 2, 2025. 

Join us on July 16 for Envision 2025 Conversations, an insightful panel discussion with the artists and a panel of regional art curators and leaders, including Grand Rapids Art Museum Director and CEO Cindy Meyers Foley, and Director of Kresge Arts in Detroit Katie Grace McGowan.