About

 
 
 
 

Photo Courtesy of @Frank Hamrick

There’s something deeply human about reaching for the tangible in the midst of the uncertain. Painting allows me to stay with the tension between observation and interpretation. My work begins with quiet observation—of bodies, gestures, memory, or place—but always opens toward something less fixed: a felt atmosphere, a shift in perception, a question held in pause.

Light is not just illumination, but a means of emotional structuring—defining presence, softening edges, revealing and withholding in equal measure. Composition, the guide of our attention—frames absence as deliberately as form, suggesting narrative without fixing it.

Painting gives form to what is fluid, fragmented, or just beyond reach. I’m drawn to moments that feel familiar yet difficult to name. Through painting, I trace those moments—sifting through memory, embodiment, and atmosphere to find a shape for what doesn’t resolve easily. The result is not explanation, but invitation: a way to hold space for uncertainty, reflection, and connection.

Nicole Duet is the Elva Leggett Smith Endowed Professor in Liberal Arts and an Associate Professor of Drawing and Painting at Louisiana Tech University School of Design where she also serves as Studio Art Program Chair. She earned her BA in Theater from California State University Northridge and her MFA in Drawing and Painting from California State University Long Beach.

Duet’s commissions include a collaboration on Collective Effervescence (with artist and professor Whitney Causey), installed at the Tech Pointe II Center for Enterprise and Innovation, and The Guards, 1947, for Louisiana Tech University President Jim Henderson’s skybox at Joe Aillet Stadium. Recent awards and publications include the Louisiana Tech University Research and Scholarship Award for Excellence in Creative Activity, the Argent Financial Annie E Richardson Fellowship at the Hambidge Arts Center, and the College of Liberal Arts award for Excellence in Research and Creative Activity at Louisiana Tech.

Select exhibitions include Site: Brooklyn, the Masur Museum, the Long Beach Museum of Art and the Dishman Museum. Her paintings are included in the public collections of Century Next Bank, Ross Lynn Foundation, Los Angeles City College and California State University Long Beach.