We recently connected with Nicole Maloof and have shared our conversation below.

Nicole, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

It’s quite funny how I began using one of the most essential materials to my practice. As someone with Type 1 Diabetes, and a major sweet tooth, I have a complicated relationship with sugar and specifically candy. I have always loved candy and sweets, since I was little, however I cannot have them often due to the intense spike in my blood sugar. On the other hand, I also rely heavily on sugar when my blood sugar is low and am never without a bag of gummies for emergencies. I was using a lot of resin in my work and as I began to color the molds of my Autosoft 90 Infusion Sets, they resembled hard candy, like a jolly-rancher. This jump-started my fascination with candy making. As someone who had never boiled sugar before, I was bound to make a lot of mistakes, and boy I did. I make the hard candy out of my small one bed room apartment on the stove. I boil pounds of sugar, water and corn syrup. At the beginning, I was not precise enough, working without a candy thermometer, the liquid candy was often not hot enough before I began pouring it into the molds. This resulted in slowly melting candy sculptures, that while they were interesting, were certainly not welcome in many spaces. I began to refine my candy making craft, researching its particulars and becoming strict with my practice. This has resulted in nearly perfect hard candy every time now. However, I am still constantly learning, from gummy candy to sour candy, I still have a ways to go…

Nicole, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is Nicole Maloof and I am a Washington, DC based artist and recent MFA graduate from American University. I graduated from Boston College in 2019 with degrees in both Studio Art and Psychology. My art practice engages themes of assumption, expectation, seduction, and the abject body. I investigate my relationship to my body and its implications in the world through material exploration and abnormal forms. I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes when I was four years old. By working with homemade hard candy, Jell-O and spent medical supplies, in combination with plaster, acrylic paint and resin, I seek to challenge the audiences’ expectations as I create bizarre artworks that are humorous, ironic, childlike, and disturbing all at once.

I create sculptures comprised of thousands of molds by casting my used Autosoft 90 Infusion Sets. The Autosoft 90 Infusion Sets insert a cannula in my body where the insulin I administer enters; I use one set every three days and have done so since I was six years old. At this point, I have used approximately 2,335 Infusion Sets throughout my life. The discarded bodily medical material the mold is made from creates distinct contrast to the beautiful exterior. I ask the viewer to consider their own possible preconceived expectations and to question why they might find the sculptures straddling a line between alarming and beautiful.

Throughout the sculptures, there is an overwhelming sense of collection, material and excess. Hundreds of repeating shapes pile upon each other highlighting the sheer amount of these items I have used in my life. This begins to touch on medical waste, the burden that those with auto immune diseases exist with every day, and the fragility of our bodies without modern science. The sculptures are simultaneously playful and twisted, seductive and repulsive based on their outer appearance and deeper meaning. Candy is a humorous material wrapped up in irony, resent and dependence. In some sculptures, acrylic paint, and liquid plastic create the illusion of the plaster Autosoft 90 molds simultaneously floating and drowning in a thick liquid. The degenerative forms that are entangled amongst the sculptures parallel the way that the insulin I administer breaks down sugar in the blood.

My lived experience of Type 1 Diabetes is constant and dominant. While I do not view Diabetes as a negative, my art practice attempts to parse out the realities of living with this autoimmune disease in whichever media necessary. Often, auto immune diseases go unnoticed to the naked eye. When someone meets me for the first time, I appear healthy, my body looks “normal” and without seeing my insulin pump or continuous glucose monitor, you would not know I have Type 1 Diabetes; my disease is invisible. My artwork brings visibility to those invisible parts of my life, that I am not ashamed of or angry with, but that ultimately affect the way I move throughout the world.

In addition to my art practice, I currently work at HEMPHILL Artworks in downtown Washington, DC as the Gallery Associate/Social Media Manager. I have participated in exhibitions with Transformer in Washington, DC, Touchstone Gallery in Washington, DC, McLean Project for the Arts in McLean, VA, Falls Church Arts Gallery in Falls Church, VA, Midwest Nice in Aberdeen, SD, Fountain Street Gallery in Boston, MA, Upstream Gallery in Hastings-On-Hudson, NY, the Attleboro Arts Museum in Attleboro, MA and Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, LA among others. I also participated in the NYC Affordable Art Fair in March of 2024 with Treat Gallery and Midwest Nice.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

While I would not necessarily say there is a set goal of my practice, as it is constantly changing, I believe a constant is attempting to share my own experiences through various medium. Each of us has unique experiences in life, and many artists attempt to channel these in their making. For me, I use various media like sculpture, painting, and candy making in order to share my experiences with an autoimmune disease in an abstract way. I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes at such a young age, that is really all I have ever known. Through consistent support from my family growing up, I never thought of Type 1 as a negative, just as something I had, that most other people did not. As I have developed as an artist, I have realized the constant thought that goes into having an autoimmune disease. I am thinking about my diabetes every second of every day whether I realize it or not. Especially now, with all of the incredible advancements that have occurred in the Type 1 Diabetes space, I even have machines beeping at me to remind me of my blood sugars every five minutes. All of this is normal to me; again, I do not see it as a negative, but it is an added layer of my reality that many do not have. The intense accumulation that is present within my work demonstrates the sheer amount of responsibility that people in my position have just to stay alive. My practice attempts to shed light on these layers within our realities. Mine happens to be autoimmune related, however, everyone has something.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

For me, the most rewarding aspect of being an artist is the life that the artwork takes on once it leaves my studio. Whenever I create a piece of art and it is in an exhibition, it is no longer mine, it becomes something else, its own entity. Through this, viewers become essential to the piece. Speaking with viewers about how they interpret my art has been incredibly interesting and integral to my practice. While many do not have Type 1 Diabetes, many either know someone who does, or are able to relate my artwork to other aspects of their own lives. Their thoughts and views on the work affect the way that I begin to see my own practice, which is pretty wild! I am going to make what I am going to make regardless, however I have found that a piece is not entirely complete until it is out there on its own. In a similar vein, the community I have found on my creative path is made up of some of my favorite people in the world. From peers to mentors, the artist community has given me many fantastic friends.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.nicolemaloof-art.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nicolemaloof_art/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nicolemaloof.art
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicole-j-maloof-113638162/

Image Credits
Headshot: Elizabeth-Ann Spruill-Smith