Nika De Carlo - Nowhere but Here
For ten years, I existed in a life of severe addiction. My days were thread tightly into one another, blending into a blanket that heavily covered me. Removed from the world around me and from myself, I began to find comfort in scarce moments of escape. These moments slowly cut the threads that covered me and offered me the ability to confront and uncover my truest self. By examining myself in these moments, my desperation to disconnect transformed into a desperation to understand how to exist. Each experience spent immersed in nature slowly began to thread together a new path that led to finding peace within myself and healing. I began to mend myself, until the blanket on top of me disappeared completely
Born in Los Angeles, California in 1993, Nika De Carlo relocated to a small town in Connecticut at a young age. As her father became terminally ill, she found photography as a refuge, which ultimately led to her work in self-portraiture. At age eighteen she moved to New York City to study at Pratt Institute, where she received a bachelor’s degree in photography with a minor in filmmaking. It was during this time that she solidified her shooting style with medium format film photography. Noted as often having a cinematic quality with an emphasis on color, her photography focuses on documenting her own personal life and close friends, centering on themes of relationship dynamics, vulnerability, and intimacy. She has participated in two solo shows in New York City and various group exhibitions throughout America and Europe. As an addition to working on her photographic endeavors, she has recently directed her first short film, Sick in Paradise, which is set to release in 2020. Nika De Carlo currently lives and works in New York City