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Apr 03, 2024

Savannah Art Scene Brothers make joy and a living as caricature artists

I’ve commissioned a lot of portraits from local artists. On my kitchen island stands a Disney-esque drawing of the grouping of my wife Gretchen, my son Lincoln and me that I had Carys LeRoy do for us

I’ve commissioned a lot of portraits from local artists.

On my kitchen island stands a Disney-esque drawing of the grouping of my wife Gretchen, my son Lincoln and me that I had Carys LeRoy do for us as a gift a few years back. That same year I hired Zay Hutchins to create alarger, more photo-realistic one of Gretchen and Lincoln that is hanging in my son’s bedroom. And last Christmas I commissioned Lauren Boyle to do one of the three of us as vampires, a spooky, moody and fun portrait that hangs over Gretchen’s bedside table.

I also have an oyster shell portrait that Shelley Smith did of me for a show at Location Gallery a couple of years ago, as well as a a full family portrait done by Alexis Javier “AJ” Perez that appeared in one of his exhibitions. Troy Wandzel painted my portrait while I interviewed him once, and that piece sits on my mantle. Both Gretchen and I have black and white photographic portraits shot by Monica Jane Frisell of the Nomadic Photo Ark, from the first time they were at Sulfur Studios as part of ARTS Southeast’s On::View Residency. And while writing this column I recalled that I still have to pick up a portrait that Peter Roberts did of me for the wonderful Drive Thru Art Box installation that he installed at the end of 2022.

So, it should come as no surprise that when our little family recently visited Savannah Comic Con and saw that Atlanta-based Zoe San Wade and his Savannah-based older brother Nickoli El were there doing caricatures, we were amongst the first to have our likenesses recreated in the sometimes outlandish art style.

“You make real quick judgments on who you’re working with,” Nickoli El told me when I spoke to him and his brother about the distinctive art form a few weeks later. “If you’re not good, you don’t make money.”

Of the pair, it was Zoe who did our portrait, a process that took only about 15 minutes, despite my son’s extreme case of what Gretchen and I term “wiggle butts.” While he drew, I chatted with Nickoli on a wide range of topics related to the business of caricature, topics he and his brother expanded on during our interview.

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The Wade brothers’ father Godfrey was trained as a fashion designer, and it was he who passed on his passion for the arts to his children. But it was a chance encounter at a theme park that solidified their interest in the artistic style that they would later build their careers off of.

“We were at Six Flags [outside of Atlanta], and we were wasting time watching the caricature artists,” said Nickoli, recalling a moment when the pair were eight and ten years old respectively, “And our dad was like, ‘I’m not gonna buy you one, but I’ll draw you one.’ So growing up we always had our caricature that our dad did in his style, so Idefinitely think that influenced us.”

As kids, both Zoe and Nickoli showed great artistic promise, and Zoe eventually went on to take classes at Savannah College of Art and Design’s (SCAD’s) Atlanta campus. Ironically, while at school Zoe ended up working as a caricature artist at the very same Six Flags location he and his brother had visited as kids. For his part, Nickoli moved out west to San Francisco, where he learned from caricature artists working on Fisherman’s Wharf.

“We call it in caricature ‘stalking,’” the elder Wade brother chuckled. “You’re just stalking the artist, breathing on his shoulder, trying to get whatever you can out of them.”

So it went until Reggie Ferguson, one of Zoe’s former managers at the amusement park, left the company to form a traveling caricature art/henna tattoo/face-painting business called Tats and Toons (later rebranded as We Art Stuff). Zoe left school and signed on first, with Nickoli coming aboard shortly thereafter. They worked for Ferguson and his company for several years, an experience they say was critical to them eventually being able to do the work professionally and on their own.

“That was our first time drawing together,” noted Nickoli. “We didn’t start out with caricatures, we had to learn.”

That was 10 years ago, and their decade of experience shows in the quality of their work: When Zoe finally presented us with our piece that Sunday morning at Savannah Comic Con, we were nothing short of ecstatic, and we couldn’t wait to add it to our ever-growing collection of portraits.

“I feel like God blesses us,” Zoe opined near the end of our conversation. “Everybody has their own talents or gifts; it’s just a matter of us actually going forth and doing those things. It could be that you’re a great dad, or a fantastic writer, or you’re just great at listening or being a caricature artist. I just think we all have a duty [to] be our authentic selves.”

“You can actually do this for a living, and be a full time artist,” he continued. “It’s pretty cool!”

Both Nickoli El Wade and Zoe San Wade can be found on Instagram @nickoliwade and @workofwade respectively. You can also find Nickoli’s work via his website at https://nickoliwade.com/.