Artivism: Changing the Narrative through Creative Empathy with Nikkolas Smith

Artivism: 

Changing the Narrative through Creative Empathy

with Nikkolas Smith

Nikkolas Smith’s Artivism journey delves into the importance of art as an instrument of empathy, empowerment, and protest, combining art and activism to inspire others to help fix the broken bones of our society. Sharing his experiences as a Black Artist, from designing theme parks to reimagining superheroes, to creating compelling viral art and bestselling picture books focused on history and social justice, Smith's workshop is a tool to empower and uplift storytellers from all backgrounds.

Nikkolas Smith took us on his journey as an Artivist, and mapped how he has used his art to speak up and speak out about importance issues. 

 

An illustrator and film concept artist, Nikkolas lives in La, where he does his canvas and digital work. Whenever he presents to a group, he always starts with a picture he drew when he was young, which he calls his "psychedelic self portrait." He personally considers art as therapy and he invites people to tap into their younger self as believes everyone is an artist. So his initial project with them is to ask yourself, what you were making when you were 10?

Nikkolas started in architect, and attended Hampton University. He heard that Hampton had a relationship with Disney, which attracted him to the school and after entering a Disney Imagination competition, which he made it to finals, he became an Imagineer after graduation, designing theme parks around the world. It was a dream job, and the thing he thought he would be doing for the rest of his life. 

After 11 years, he thought, maybe architecture wasn't how he wanted to continue to make art. New thoughts started popping up and 2019, Nikkolas left Disney and became a full time illustrator but came back for one last architectural project.

The LEGACY TOWER. 

Nikkolas wanted to create something that paid homage to Black architects who faced discrimination and were never given their due. Nikkolas was inspired to rewrite their legacy that was pushed down. He incorporated patterns, images from these different architects to create the Legacy Tower.

"Create narrative and incorporate empathy in your art." Nikkolas now finds ways to infuse this into his work to make positive change to legacies that hadn't been celebrated in the past. 

A lot of Nikkolas' art pieces, and murals have to do with retelling and rewriting a narrative. 

"Tell an entire story in one image." - Nikkolas

From concept art for Sinners vs Space Jam, he keep coming up with ideas, trying to tell heroic stories while trying to capture the essence of a person, story or moment in history. Growing up he didn't have a lot of black characters to look up to so he is thankful that he was able to create and collaborate with corporation. 

He is in the business of "building bridges, not walls." 

Today, he questions: What is justice? What is patriotism? What make a heroic person, heroic qualities? And the question of what do you do with the super power you have? 

ART+Activism = Artivism

"It's an artist's duty to reflect the times in which we live" - Nina Simone

He has made art every Sunday for 11 years and uses that time as therapy. He documents historical things, or current events. He wants to make things that are relevant and say something about the world we live in, finding those stories and creatively talk about them. There are so many things in American history that can be talked about, from the past and present, across all cultures and people. 

His goal is to show the humanity of the people. 

About Nikkolas Smith
Nikkolas Smith, a native of Houston, Texas, is a Master of Architecture recipient from Hampton University. After designing theme parks at Walt Disney Imagineering for 11 years, he is now an ARTivist, Concept artist, Children's Books Author, Film Illustrator (Space Jam 2, Black Panther 2, Judah and the Black Messiah) and Movie poster designer (Black Panther, Soul, Beale Street, Southside With You, Dear White People, Stranger Fruit). He is the author/illustrator of the picture books "The Golden Girls of Rio" (nominated for an NAACP Image Award), My Hair Is Poofy And That's Okay. And World Cup Women . The 1619 Project: Born on the Water is his latest illustrated picture book and #1 NYT Bestseller in collaboration with Pulitzer Price-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones and Renée Watson for Kokila and The NYT. He is a proud 2016 White House Innovators of Color fellow. His most famous and recognized works focus on Artivism. As an illustrator of color, Nikkolas creates captivating art that can spark important conversations around social justice in today's world and inspire meaningful change. Many of his viral and globally published sketches are included in his latest book Sunday Sketch: The Art of Nikkolas, a visual journey on life and a collection of more than 100 sketches he has done in the last five years. His works have been featured on TIME Magazine, The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, Buzzfeed, the Academy of Motion Pictures, The Guardian, ABC, NBC, KCET and many more. His art has been shared on social media by Michelle Obama, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, Van Jones, Shaun King, Rihanna, Colin Kaepernick, Janet Jackson, Viola Davis, Jamie Foxx, Erykah Badu, Lupita Nyong'o, Kendrick Lamar, Tracee Ellis Ross, Ava Duvernay, Common, Simone Biles, Miley Cirus, Mark Ruffalo, Amy Schumer and many others. Nikkolas also talks at conferences (TEDxWatts) and schools all over the country, and leads workshops in digital painting character and movie poster and design. He lives in Los Angeles, California. 

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