Unable to avoid confronting the subject, Nicole Balgley’s work focuses on mental illness, trauma, and aspects of the human experience ranging from common to devastating. Drawn to sentimental reminders of her own life and history, Nicole Balgley uses imagery and visual sensory triggers such as light and transparency to emulate emotional atmospheres. Contradictory between alarming imagery that is also fragile and feminine, her work has a striking rawness that makes it impossible to walk away from without feeling sympathy towards the conditions of strangers.