NICK WYLIE is an artist, organizer, and educator based in Chicago. From 2015-18 he served as Associate Director of Southern Exposure, a 45-year-old artist-run nonprofit in San Francisco. Wylie received his BFA from Carnegie Mellon University, did post-baccalaureate work in Art History at Northwestern University, and went to the University of Illinois at Chicago for his MFA. In 2006, he co-founded Harold Arts, a Chicago-based non-profit arts organization with a residency in Ohio, and was its co-director until early 2010. He then co-founded ACRE (Artists’ Cooperative Residency and Exhibitions), a 501(c)3 with residency in rural Wisconsin and an extensive exhibitions program in Chicago. Wylie served as co-director of ACRE until moving to San Francisco and joining its Board of Directors in 2015. Wylie was also Founding Artistic Director at Mana Contemporary Chicago, a large art center in Pilsen from 2012-15. He has taught artmaking and arts administration courses at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and the University of St Francis. Wylie’s art practice, which incorporates video technology, performance, drawing, and queer futurity, has haunted galleries in Chicago and beyond for the past fifteen years. His work currently focuses on Elmer Ellsworth, dandy abolitionist and purported lover of Lincoln, who was first to die in the Civil War after taking down a giant Confederate flag.
Bio as of 4/2025