Resident artist at Hive Gallery, Downtown Los Angeles, Nick De Costa describes his work as “ebullient,” and a testament to the abundant wealth and complexity of our planetary ecosystem, as well as the infinite inner, and outer Cosmoses.

Snake Art Nick De Costa

As an Army combat veteran, like so many other survivors of trauma, he discovered a process for healing through a life of devoted art practice. Exploring the depths of the subconscious and inspired by meditation, as well as surfing, and with gratitude towards the collective experience we share on Earth, and the temporal essence of our own mortality, these works are made as crude, yet erudite maps of the artist’s rich, and vibrant inner world, and also the totality of all human existence, as viewed through the lens of mental health awareness and self-care.

Utilizing a versatile skill set of ink drawing and watercolor painting, and deeply encoded with esoteric pagan motifs, Nick’s dense illustrations entrance the viewer with exhaustive detail and brilliant moments of creativity throughout a striking narrative that is uniquely his own, yet feel familiar to us all. As one looks at Nick’s drawings, one is taken by a sense of synergy that binds all of his work as we are bound to Nature.

snake art

As an Army combat veteran, like so many other survivors of trauma, he discovered a process for healing through a life of devoted art practice. Exploring the depths of the subconscious and inspired by meditation, as well as surfing, and with gratitude towards the collective experience we share on Earth, and the temporal essence of our own mortality, these works are made as crude, yet erudite maps of the artist’s rich, and vibrant inner world, and also the totality of all human existence, as viewed through the lens of mental health awareness and self-care.

Utilizing a versatile skill set of ink drawing and watercolor painting, and deeply encoded with esoteric pagan motifs, Nick’s dense illustrations entrance the viewer with exhaustive detail and brilliant moments of creativity throughout a striking narrative that is uniquely his own, yet feel familiar to us all. As one looks at Nick’s drawings, one is taken by a sense of synergy that binds all of his work as we are bound to Nature.

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My Work

Flower Art

Statement

My art is cultivated with the intention of presenting a manifestation of permanence by way of the temporal, and an offering to the divine feminine, whom I find to reside in all the living and sentient things of our natural environment. I am deeply influenced by this seemingly endless abundance of life and evolutionary history, as well as the fragility of our world.

Sword Art

In the years following my experience as a combat photographer in the war in Iraq, while enlisted as a soldier in the US army, I have come to understand more lucidly the thin ties that bind mortals to this realm, and like so many other survivors of trauma, I discovered a process for healing through a life of devoted art practice. My work contains these themes of life and death, light and shadow, rot and decay, and compassion and redemption.

Using only raw, analog materials like ink and watercolor, and saltwater from the ocean, I find that these mediums help to further connect me with the Earth and to conceptualize my art by using a language of literal, as well as symbolic visual expressions.

Sword Art
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Events

Flower CV

CV

Education

BFA / Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, CA

Certified /Digital Multimedia Course, Multimedia Illustration (MOS 25M), Defense Information School, Ft. Meade, MD

Certified / Mass Communication Foundations - Graphic Design, Multimedia Illustration (MOS 25M), Defense Information School, Ft. Meade, MD

Residency

2020-present / Hive Gallery and Studios, Los Angeles, CA

Group Shows

2022 / Monster Mash, Hive Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2022 / Everything but the Kitchen Sink, La Luz De Jesus Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2022 / Line Attack 10, Hive Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2021 / Best of Hive 2021, Hive Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2021 / Line Attack 9, Hive Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2021 / Hive Tarot 12, Hive Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2020 / Line Attack 8, Hive Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

Bibliography

2022 Chosen Winner / American Illustration 41

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Galleries