About the Artist
Chase Nickoles is an artist, animator, and videographer. He recently graduated with a BFA in animation at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County with Magna Cum Laude honors and has an Associate of Arts & Sciences, Visual Arts Concentration from Carroll Community College. During his time at Carroll, he was the Fine Arts Club 2020 member of the year, Curators Choice Award 2020 winner, and a dual work-study animator and media aid.
While working towards his BFA in 2022, he interned at Baltimore and DC video production company Early Light Media where he applied his extensive knowledge of After Effects as part of an animation team. He has freelanced for Early Light Media in the following months since completing this internship on several projects.
Also in 2022, he had freelanced as a graphic designer for the weekly call-in show Office Hours Live of renowned comedian Tim Heidecker of Adult Swim’s Tim and Eric fame. In this role, he had created illustrations used as thumbnails and promotional material for a select number of Office Hours Live episodes.
He has had 2 works screened at the Thank You Film Festival at Towson University’s Union Theater, 1 work screened at MICA's Student Animators For Inclusion Stick in the Dirt animation festival, and a personal film-noir-inspired animation screened at the Center for Art, Design, and Visual Culture, the Sweaty Eyeballs Animation Festival, FESTIVAL DE CINEMA INTERNACIONAL DE MERDA DE SUECA in Spain, Animated Expressions Expo in France, and featured as both a Daily Feature and a Frontpage feature on Newgrounds.com.
In the past, he has had his art hung up at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center from being the Maryland STEM 2019 Art Festival contest college winner. Additionally, he freelanced as a package designer for New York-based condiment business K!ck Condiments and collaborated with Vietnam War Veteran Infantry Platoon Leader John S. Tomko Jr. on the book cover design of his Autobiography, "19 Miles: Cambodia 1970 and Other Stories," available for purchase on sites like Amazon and Barnes & Noble. In September 2009, he was a Nickelodeon Magazine art contest winner and started animating in the early 2010s on Flipnote Studio.
His most frequent role is to create performance and narrative music videos for live music singer-songwriter-performing artist devoN Nickoles. These works are created with the goal of making the viewer feel as if they attended the events captured.
He has taken classes or has been self-taught in Adobe After Effects motion design and compositing, physical animation through Dragon Frame, Maya animation, Blender animation, Clip Studio Paint, videography, graphic design, color theory, typography, digital photography, Adobe Photoshop/Premiere/Illustrator, drawing, painting, Ableton Live, and printmaking.
"I find myself to be a collector and a maximalist, so as an artist, I want all my works to be an experience and celebration of everything that makes the project what it is. No matter how small, everything gets an equal share of the spotlight. This comes from working as a videographer for my singer-sister; I know the importance of capturing the small moments and the role it plays in perfecting the experience for the viewer."
"I have lived on a farm most of my life, volunteered at a horse rescue with my family in my youth, and worked at a rural pet store. During downtime at the local horse rescue, I would feed the many wild cats and bring my sketchbook to draw alongside their company. I am a big animal person - pet horses, pig, goats, ducks, fish, roosters, chicken, sugar glider, turtles, cats, and dogs. This resulted in a great sense of thoughtfulness, compassion, and purpose towards everyone and everything and a unique perspective when approaching a project."
