Nicole Shaffer is a Bay Area interdisciplinary artist with a focus on research-based installations. They incorporate historical research, family history, and passed-down craft techniques to make sculptures that center the nuance and beauty of divergent embodiments. Their work intercedes private and public spaces through the creation of “speculative furniture,” ceramic and upholstery sculptures that suggest non-normative ways of being a body and experiencing support.
Shaffer’s recent work highlights parallels between historic horticultural practices and medicalized systems of oppression. The work challenges constructs of what it means to be “normal” and celebrates the variance that such systems attempt to erase. By reimagining harmful histories and celebrating the craft techniques of their chosen and familial ancestry, Shaffer reclaims access to a sense of lineage and belonging historically denied to trans/gender variant, queer, neurodiverse, and mad lives.
Shaffer was a 2025 Fellow at Kala Art Institute and 2023 Graduate Fellow at Headlands Center for the Arts, and their work was exhibited in Bay Area Now 9 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Southern Exposure, SOMArts, 500 Capp Street, Kala Art Gallery, and Root Division, all in San Francisco. They were a 2025 resident artist at Real Time and Space Studios and have an upcoming residency at Lucky Break Studios, both in Oakland, CA. Shaffer received an MFA from San Francisco State University and is a recipient of the Murphy Cadogan award. They work at Stanford University as a mentor/technician assistant in the Sculpture Lab and at Creativity Explored teaching ceramics.
Residency: June 2026 - September 2026
Art Exhibition: Friday, September 18 & Saturday, September 19 & Tuesday, September 22