FULL ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
Nichole Montgomery was born in Oregon in 1978 and raised within the Mount Hood wilderness of the Pacific Northwest. The isolation and terrain of that environment shaped her earliest relationship to pattern, repetition, and sustained observation. From early childhood, she engaged in constant drawing, beginning with instinctive doodling in the mid-1980s that gradually developed into complex systems of layered line, texture, and mixed media. Entirely self-taught, her artistic formation emerged through independent exploration and prolonged mark-making.

Following study in Criminal Justice at Mount Hood Community College, Montgomery entered the United States Army in 1998. She served for five and a half years as an Automated Logistical Specialist focusing on the operation and management of the Army’s automated supply systems, including SARSS certifications which included the military post’s requisitions, status reporting, and accountable documentation were processed and reconciled. The position required sustained accuracy for saving millions of dollars supporting divisional logistic operations through precise data control, record management and coordination between subordinate unites and higher chain of command positions. Her training included SQL-based systems, Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint certification, NBC/CAM, fire marshal qualification, field sanitation, and armorer certification overseas and stateside. As a certified armorer, her primary weapons systems included the M249, M16A2, Mk 19, and .50-Cal. During her service, she prepared awards documentation and disciplinary records for unit command, work requiring accuracy, consistency, and discretion.

Her assignments included service with DISCOM as part of the APC section within the 2nd Infantry Division in South Korea, followed by service with an S&T Troop. She concluded her military career with a Field Medic unit at Fort Carson, Colorado, within the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment.

Montgomery’s artistic lineage spans multiple generations. Her great-grandmother Dorothy Sibert, her grandmother Beverly Reinhart, and her mother Elisabeth Hopper were all self-taught multidisciplinary artists. Art functioned within the family as a grounding and stabilizing force, practiced for its own necessity and continuity. This impulse extends across generations and remains present within her own household.

During the early 1990s, Montgomery’s high school art instructor, Mr. Brown, who had also taught her mother during her school years, recognized the intensity and persistence of her line work and encouraged its development. Over time, her drawings shifted from sharply articulated forms toward increasingly curved and layered compositions. This evolution reflects years of accumulated attention and the integration of her NeuroLines process alongside therapeutic engagement following military service at the V.A. The curvature and density of the work developed through sustained use of drawing as a stabilizing discipline.

Beginning in 2007, Montgomery expanded her line-based practice into digital processes while continuing to work across mixed media, ink, paints and photography. She has presented work through solo, group, and juried exhibitions across Oklahoma and the surrounding region since that time. She became a full-time artist in 2024.

Her work has received recognition through numerous awards at the local, regional, and national levels, including first-place distinction at the national level of the National Veterans Creative Arts Competition, resulting in selection for the 2026 National Veterans Creative Arts Festival. A complete record of exhibitions and awards is maintained in her curriculum vitae.

Montgomery maintains her private studio, The Den, at Liggett Studio in the East Village Arts District of downtown Tulsa. The space supports sustained production and instruction and is available for private lessons and visits by appointment during weekday hours.

She is the mother of two grown children. Her son, Sean Montgomery, holds a degree in computer science with a concentration in machine learning, works at Tristar Glass in Oklahoma, and is a member of the Tulsa Men’s Rugby Club. Her daughter, Elisabeth Montgomery, will graduate early at 16 from Booker T. Washington High School in Tulsa in 2026, is a member of the National Honor Society, and is pursuing a degree in finance alongside formal musical study. She is also a member of the Tulsa Women’s Rugby Club.

Montgomery resides in South Tulsa with her partner, David Wilson, owner of the firm Wilson Investment Consulting LLC. Together, they engage in international travel with a close professional network rooted in finance and civic leadership. Their south Tulsa home also serves as a site for small, private gatherings that bring together artists, collectors, financial professionals, and community members for conversation, exhibition viewing, and cultural exchange. Alongside these efforts, they participate in volunteer work supporting local and regional community initiatives.

FULL ARTIST STATEMENT

The work began in childhood as repeated scribbles and sketches made without instruction, marks returned to daily as a means of remaining present within the body. Over time, this habitual drawing developed into sustained attentiveness, through which focus could be held by the hand and steadiness maintained through continuous line carried forward by endurance and long familiarity.

Across decades, the repeated movement between inner and outer line established a private visual language shaped through persistence and return. The hand enclosed space, retraced boundaries, and revisited the same surfaces until rhythm emerged through duration. Drawing assumed the character of a discipline, formed through years of uninterrupted engagement and daily continuation.

The surfaces that result from this process develop through accumulation and revisitation over extended periods. Some works reach a state of completion and remain unchanged, while others are returned to years later to receive additional layers, textures, symbols, or materials, including resin, assemblage elements, and altered photographic or digital components, as each piece requires. Finished works are rarely discarded, and many remain in storage before being rediscovered, resumed, and extended, including works previously exhibited.

Materials enter the practice through sustained engagement with the work as it unfolds. Pen and ink, photography, mixed media, relief, texture, and digital processes are employed according to the demands of each piece, with line persisting as a unifying presence across the body of work, whether appearing directly or carried through structure and composition.

Over time, the character of the line shifted, moving from compression toward increased curvature and softness, recording long-term effort toward physical and psychological integration. This evolution remains legible across the work, reflecting sustained commitment to healing through practice combined with disciplined care. Drawing continues daily, functioning as a necessary act through which equilibrium is maintained.

Line remains central within the work as a living system, binding materials, carrying memory, and holding the record of time spent. Each piece stands as evidence of endurance and continued presence within my imaginative world.

LEADERSHIP | SERVICE | APPOINTMENTS

Veterans of Foreign War Post 577
Representative | Speaker | 2015 - Present

Tulsa Veterans Day Parade
Committee | 2015 - Present
Group One Commander | 2022 - Present
Graphic Designer | 2024

Field of Heroes | VFW 577
Overnight Guard | 2018 - Present

Tulsa City Council
Military Veteran Speaker | 2022 - Present

The American Legion Post 1 - Tulsa
(*Terms > 2014 - February 2024)

Vice Commander
Media Spokesperson
Executive Board Member

American Legion Joe Carson Foundation
Board member | *Two Terms

Memorial Park Cemetery Corporation
American Legion Section 11

Investigator | *Two terms
President | *Three Terms

The American Legion Dept of Oklahoma
Media | Communication Spokesperson | *Three Terms

The American Legion National Headquarters
Media | Communication Committee | *Three Terms