Jack Hanley Gallery (New York) showed paintings by Nikki Maloof at NADA Miami Beach 2016. Maloof is from Peoria, Illinois and currently lives in Brooklyn.
Her stylish still-life works seem to have cats in them with some frequency (from the small sample size I've seen). And even though the pieces deal with the usual suspects--flowers and fish and the like--there is something peculiar, almost otherworldly, about them as well. These pieces are oil on canvas. Maloof has a BFA from Indiana University and a Masters from Yale.