Nicola Vruwink, MFA, is an artist, educator, and designer committed to mentoring future creatives while maintaining her studio practice. She has found her home in the California community college system, where Nicola is currently a full-time faculty member in the graphic design program at Santa Monica College. Additionally, she is an assistant faculty at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, CA.

Originally from Iowa, Nicola received her MFA from the University of Washington in Seattle and studied in the MFA program at the University of Iowa. She lives in Los Angeles and maintains a studio in Landers, CA, near Joshua Tree in the Mojave Desert. After relocating from Seattle to Los Angeles, Nicola’s work has been featured in numerous exhibitions, including the Seattle Art Museum, the Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the Lamont Gallery at Phillips Exeter Academy, and group shows in California at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, Riverside Art Museum, and the Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena. 

In 2024, Vruwink had a solo exhibition with The Jones Institute at the Minneapolis Street Projects, and in 2019, Vruwink had a solo exhibition at the Lancaster Museum of Art. In 2022, she participated in a two-person show at Hey There Projects in Joshua Tree. Previously she had two solo exhibitions in Los Angeles with DEN Contemporary Gallery. Currently, she has a piece in an exhibition at the Palm Springs Museum.

Vruwink has been featured in several publications, such as the Los Angeles Times, Artforum, Huffington Post, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, The Stranger, White Hot Magazine, and Angeleno Magazine.