Artist Spotlight Series – Sinikka Nogelo

Spotlight on Sinikka Nogelo

Gloucester painter Sinikka Nogelo considers herself lucky to work in a studio overlooking Joey C.’s business, Capt. Joe and Sons. “The view is just lovely. I enjoy seeing the activity on the working waterfront, knowing my friendly neighbors are doing so much for the community with Good Morning Gloucester, while supplying us with the freshest lobster, and also supporting the arts. A few years back at Joey’s, one of my favorite art installations featured larger than life, black and white photos of faces of the waterfront. “

Though Sinikka has been most well known locally for her work in community television, art has always played a major part in her life. After graduating from Tufts, she studied at Montserrat with Oliver Balf, Barbara Moody, George Gabin, Roger Martin and Ethan Berry. She also took classes at Silvermine Guild in Connecticut and at the BFA’s Museum School in Boston. As a young artist, she was a founding member of the women’s cooperative “Center and Main Gallery,” located in what is now Passports Restaurant. Sinikka returned to painting full time upon her retirement from Cape Ann TV in 2010.

A member of Rocky Neck Art Colony and the Cape Ann Artisans Studio tour, Sinikka paints contemporary pieces inspired by thoughts and feelings, sea and sky. “I just love color and composition. I get a great deal of satisfaction from the process of making art, just seeing where things will go, experimenting and building on what I’ve made.” In recent years Sinikka has also been creating wall pieces from recyclables and found objects, some of which were on display last summer at the Cape Ann Museum’s White-Ellery House in Sinikka’s installation, “Tin – Relics and Remakes.”

At the Rocky Neck Art Colony’s Holiday Art Festival Sinikka is offering miniature paintings on easels to grace spots such as desks, book shelves and counters, as well as miniature paintings to hang as ornaments. Her paintings have long been influenced by the sea and sky which she uses as subjects and as metaphors. Sinikka loves color and composition and putting that first stroke on a canvas.

You can see more of Sinikka’s work at the Rocky Neck Holiday Art & Fine Crafts Festival (Sat. & Sun. noon – 4:00pm through 12/29) and at the Magnolia Historical Society’s Art in the Schoolhouse Show (Sat. & Sun. 10:00am – 2:00pm through 12/22).

E.J. Lefavour