Mall Rats
McCoy-Snell uses an abstract language to convey her inner feelings. The expressive, boldly coloured shapes escape the limits of form and line and overlap freely to create an image of extraordinary force. Throughout her career, the artist has dealt with an array of moral, political, and social themes. Her paintings often evoke the imagery and iconography of street art — running paint, epigrams, and bolts that evoke vandalism, graffiti, and urban public spaces — to denounce our dependence on authority, tradition, and dogma. She is the recipient of several awards, including the inaugural McCoy Prize for Excellence in Caymanian Art (2002).
About the Artist
Nickola McCoy-Snell
b. 1974
Born in Savannah, Grand Cayman, Nickola McCoy-Snell studied art at University College of the Cayman Islands. She rose to prominence in 2002, when she won the first McCoy Prize for Excellence in Caymanian Art. She also won CNCF’s Artistic Achievement Award in 2002 and the Honours and People’s Choice awards in The McCoy Prize in 2007. Her highly stylised paintings evoke the imagery and iconography of street art — running paint, epigrams and bolts that evoke vandalism and graffiti. A member of the Native Sons collective, McCoy-Snell has exhibited widely with the group, including See Me Ya (2007) and Native Sons’ Grass Piece (2008) at the Morgan Gallery, Grand Cayman. Her work is included in the permanent collections of the National Gallery and the Cayman Islands National Archive and has featured in the NGCI exhibitions Portrait of an Artist (2003), Emergence (2005), Native Sons’ Fahive (2005), A Day in the Life (2011), All Access (2015), Native Sons – Twenty Years On (2016), Cross Currents: 1st Cayman Islands Biennial (2019), and Tropical Visions (2019).
