Marnika Shelton, AKA Nika Cherrelle, is an engaging, vibrant, artist, educator, and activist with over 25 years of experience in the Fine Arts. Classically trained in sculpture she specializes in figurative ceramics and portraiture, Marnika uses the visual arts as a platform to drive home complex, layered, and controversial narratives. Designed to engage the viewer in conversations that challenge socially and culturally normative viewpoints around race, gender, sexuality, class, and religion. She takes on topics such as indoctrination and historical prejudice by recreating stories from unexplored angles to expose longstanding impacts on society. Views of masculinity, prejudice, violence, shame, sexuality, and how fear creates difference are all within the scope of her work.
Marnika enjoys speaking in communities, classrooms, and institutions about Art, Sexuality, and Politics. Her work exists to empower and inspire people across all cultural backgrounds. By breaking down taboo, she aims to create a world where all people feel loved, honored, and respected.
Marnika Shelton is also the Founder and operator of Nika Cherrelle’s LLC.
Focusing on the paradigm of the African-American experience, Marnika’s work Focuses on the contradictions that now exist as a result of centuries of oppression. Contradictions, such as African-American beauty standards, gender stereotypes, and sexuality fuel their creative process. African-American ideals of beauty mirror the past ideals of their Caucasian counterparts. Marnika uses satire to expose how these standards have affected the esteem of a mass number of people over several generations. In the piece, Hairy Nuisance (2008), coarsely textured hair is used to create a rope, which is then tied into a noose to represent the stigma that hair can play in personal identity.
Gender stereotypes also have a major role in their work. With Dual Compensation Series (2008), sex toys are fused with standard handguns to provoke ideas of falsified, or compensated masculinity. These pieces are meant to entertain as well as raise questions about the many ways our society views the power gender paradigm.
This work exists in a world that fueled by history, stereotypes, and prejudice to question the social constructs and cultural norms that have defined society.
