I create sculptural work that explores the hidden worlds people carry beneath what can be seen. At the foundation of Mind·Full·Ness® are 112 transparent epoxy resin portraits built around a repeated face and transformed by what each one carries within. The practice continues beyond those original 112 through new faces, heads, materials, scales, and forms. For a deeper understanding of how the work functions, begin with Practice Context.
Courtney Nichelle Coble is an American sculptor, inventor, and public servant based in Leesburg, Virginia. She is the creator of Mind·Full·Ness®, an evolving sculptural practice that uses recurring face and head forms, transparency, embedded everyday objects, and material storytelling to explore the hidden dimensions of human experience. At its foundation is a completed collection of 112 transparent epoxy resin portrait sculptures built around a repeated face cast from her likeness. She is also the founder of Couture Underground, LLC.
Across those 112 works, the repeated face creates a shared human framework while embedded everyday objects carry stories of identity, memory, resilience, belonging, faith, care, culture, labor, pressure, joy, and transformation. Transparency functions as both material and metaphor: the work lets us look into and through the portrait while reminding us that visibility is not the same as understanding.
Coble’s process begins with an idea, memory, social condition, or lived experience and the selection of materials capable of carrying its meaning. Within the foundational collection, objects are arranged inside the repeated facial form and suspended through carefully controlled layers of epoxy resin. As Mind·Full·Ness® continues, its faces, heads, materials, scales, installations, and related forms may evolve without changing those original 112.
The work is designed to reward both distance and proximity. From across the room, each sculpture registers as a human presence. At close range, its embedded materials become evidence, metaphor, and narrative. Rather than prescribing a single interpretation, Coble creates space for viewers to bring their own memories, associations, and lived experiences to the encounter.
For Coble, “couture” signifies intentionality rather than excess. Every sculpture is one-of-a-kind, meticulously constructed, and created with attention to material integrity, craftsmanship, and conceptual purpose. Beauty, tension, vulnerability, resilience, and hope are allowed to coexist within the same sculptural field.
Coble’s work has received recognition through juried exhibitions, publications, awards, editorial features, and artist interviews in the United States and internationally.
The original 112 remain complete and distinct, with a long-term vision for experiencing the collection as a whole. Mind·Full·Ness® itself remains active, with room for new faces, heads, materials, scales, installations, and related forms that grow from its language without changing those original 112.
Every person carries a hidden world. Her work is an invitation to see it.
2026 — First Place
HMVC Gallery New York, Freestyle 4.0
Awarded for SUN [FLOWER] CHILD
2026 — Highly Commended Artist
The Homiens Art Prize, Winter 2026
2026 — 3D Special Recognition
Light Space & Time Online Art Gallery
16th Annual Figurative Exhibition
2025 — Merit Winner
Upward Gallery, Identity
A fuller articulation of the conceptual framework guiding this work can be found in the Practice Context.