About the Artwork

Almost everything Nolan creates uses denim harvested from jeans. Each pair lived a life before it reaches the studio, carrying stories shaped by years of use. Through bleaching, cutting, washing, and painting, Nolan excavates these traces of lived experience and incorporates them into abstract paintings.

Nolan builds each frame and mounts the denim, enabling the fabric to collaborate. As the denim bonds with the acrylic, the material responds—revealing patterns worn into it over time. In Nolan’s Planet series, these reactions often create areas where the fabric breathes, forming negative space that is an intentional part of the composition, almost like a color contributing to the emotion of the piece.

Bleach weakens fibers, revealing the material’s wear. Frayed edges become active elements within the paintings. In the Ocean series, these fibers are highlighted with dry brushing, transforming frays into the white peaks of waves cresting.

Nolan works with denim because of the stories lived into it. Through the paintings, Nolan excavates and reveals marks of lives lived. Complementing this, The Denim Stories Project™ invites people to share their own memories of the jeans they have worn. The artist encourages you to contribute your own story: a treasured memory, a Tuesday night on the sofa with pizza, a secret only your jeans know about you.

The work invites viewers to look again at something familiar. The next time you wear jeans, what new landscapes, memories, or possibilities might you see? Perhaps they were there all along, waiting to be seen.