Curriculum Vitae available upon request. For more information please email: nkline1045@mac.com

Nick Kline (Born 1968, Spring Lake, NJ) lives in NYC and works in Newark, NJ. He is a multidisciplinary conceptual visual artist, working in photography, artists’ books, installation, and socially engaged art. His focus revolves around themes of interiority, place, and transcendence.

Since 2017, Kline has been working on projects in the Central Ward of Newark, NJ, SHINE Portrait Studio and Express Newark. Situated at the site of James Van Der Zee’s first professional photography job, within a former luxury department store, he draws inspiration from these legacies of beauty to support community expression and self-representation. This work is done through building relationships, activating the interior space, and programming. Selected collaborative projects he’s been involved in shaping include “Blues People” (2024), “Adama Delphine Fawundu: When The Water Sings” (2024), “Things We Do In The Dark: Cinematic Experiments in Kinship” (2023), “Willie Cole: Spirit Catcher and Lumen-less Lantern” (2023), “Picturing Black Girlhood: Moments of Possibility” (2022), “Black Portraiture[s] VII: Play and Performance” (2022), “Saya Woolfalk: Cloudscape Portal” (2021), “Deborah Willis: In Pursuit of Beauty: Imaging Closets in Newark and Beyond” (2018).

From 2015 to 2016, Kline created “Stripes for St. Joseph” in the historic Grandville Avenue neighborhood of Grand Rapids, MI. This project expanded from an installation using a former Catholic Church, an important symbol in a community being gentrified, to community advocacy, photography, and performance. “Stripes for St. Joseph” was exhibited by Site:Lab Rumsey St. Projects and Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park for two years of ArtPrize. Hyperallergic Magazine listed Stripes for St. Joseph in the Best of 2015 Top 10 Exhibitions Across the USA, and it was a Finalist, the Juror’s Prize Installation category, for the 2015 ArtPrize. From 2009 to 2017, he worked on the collaborative “GlassBook Project,” artists’ books informed by a trauma-informed perspective that was exhibited in the Museum of Art of Puerto Rico; Museum of American Glass; Grounds for Sculpture; Shakespeare Theater, Harman Center for the Arts; Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, SAMHSA, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Selected solo exhibitions of Kline’s work include Momenta Art, Open Source Gallery, Occurrence Gallery, Project For Empty Space, ProsjektRom Normanns, and Vaste et Vague Art Center. Selected two-person and group exhibitions include Smack Mellon, Cuchifritos, Allentown Art Museum, The Pennsylvania College of Art & Design, Silver Eye Center for Photography, Center for Design, University of Quebec, Berlinskej Model, and Center for Book Arts and Media at Columbia College, Chicago.

In 2014, Kline created “Boys’ Shirts,” a Printed Matter Inc., Window Installation that corresponded with the release of his collaborative artist’s book, “He.” In 2013, Kline was commissioned by UNTITLED. Art Fair to create “PhotoGrid,” an artist’s publication for that year's Art Basel. Kline has had his work published by Schlebrugge Editor, Endless Editions, As We Try and Sleep Press, and others. His artist’s publications are in the permanent collections of The Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Harvard Art Museums, Getty Research Institute, Artexte, Banff Center, Saxon State Library - Dresden University. Kline is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including artist residencies at Artexte, Montreal, Canada; and the Center for Contemporary Arts, Prague, Czech Republic.

Kline is the Creative Director of Express Newark, Founder and Director of SHINE Portrait Studio, and Associate Professor of Photography and Fine Arts, Department of Arts, Culture, and Media, at Rutgers University-Newark, NJ. He received his MFA in Photography from Cranbrook Academy of Art and his BFA in Photography from the University of the Arts.