Nicole Appel (b. 1990) lives in Queens and works at Brooklyn’s LAND Studio and Gallery, which she joined in 2016. Previously, Appel was a member of Manhattan’s Pure Vision Arts’ studio program, where she first began creating her specialized portraits, each an homage to an important individual in her life. Appel’s relationships with her subjects and her unique perspective are reflected in the highly saturated compositions that capture experiences and memories of people and places. These “patchwork portraits” have become highly collected, and offer a unique take on the representation of the inner life and lived experience of the people she features.