Nicole Goveia tried painting and printmaking at school, but when she got a camera for her 16th birthday and taught herself the ins and outs of photography, it opened the way to a lifelong devotion to capturing images on film.
Growing up in Eastham but with family from Provincetown meant always being surrounded by art and artists, Goveia says, even though the talented creative types in her family “weren’t the formal established ones.”
After graduating from Nauset Regional High School in 2013, Goveia leaned into science instead of pursuing an artist’s life and landed a job as a physiologist in Boston. She kept taking pictures, though, especially when she visited the Cape, where she felt more creative.
Inspired by her family history and especially by the memory of her great aunt Grace Gouveia (the late teacher, social worker, and advocate for elders put the original “u” of the Portuguese spelling back in her name, but the rest of the family spells it “Goveia”), she gradually amassed a collection of photographs of Provincetown and Cape Cod that she knew she would share someday.
A few years ago, Goveia discovered the form she wanted her images to take. Perusing her father’s collection of antiques, the beautiful blue of a cyanotype intrigued her. She researched the process and taught herself how to do it. “Once I made one, I fell in love,” she says.
Cyanotypes were invented in 1842 for reproducing mathematical tables and, later, blueprints. They are created through contact printing of an image against a surface treated with iron salts and then exposed to ultraviolet light. During exposure, the chemical reaction in the iron creates a bold Prussian blue color.
For Goveia, the hue was the perfect complement to her images, highlighting both the nautical and emotional qualities of her coastal surroundings. Her images of the Cape, often focused on a single landmark or moment in time, are both bold and calming when distilled in blue and white.
Two years ago, she made the leap from making cyanotypes as a hobby to selling them at local markets around the Cape. For each of her images, she produces a limited number of prints in various sizes, all numbered and signed. Once an image is retired, she mines her deep collection of existing images or returns to a favorite spot to capture one anew with a fresh perspective. “When people grow up on the Cape, they can become desensitized to its beauty,” she says. “But I have always been in awe, and I try to capture that through my work.”
In addition to producing work from her selection of images, she also makes custom cyanotypes on request. She likes the way cyanotypes offer fresh perspectives on familiar subjects. While a painting typically reflects the artist’s subjective interpretation, cyanotypes, being photographic in nature, capture an objective image, she says. The result resembles a watercolor or antique photograph, blending accuracy with a handcrafted, vintage feel.
Nicole Goveia sells her work online at goveiagallery.com and at LAHA and Isabel Souza Studio, both on Main Street in Wellfleet. She will be at the fine arts fair at the Wellfleet OysterFest on Oct. 19 and 20.
