Nicola returned to art after a successful career in Marketing. She is a self-trained artist, who has painted for over 10 years, working primarily in acrylics and mixed media.
Her paintings are created through planned experimentation and the layering of paint so that each piece becomes a journey, changing course with each layer until the piece is resolved. She works in her studio which overlooks Cullercoats Bay in the Northeast of England where she gathers inspiration from coastal walks. Her paintings are generally abstract, but she also like to explore and celebrate the everyday in still life work.
Living within a stone’s throw of the beach has allowed Nicola to indulge her love of the coastline and its ever-changing beauty, to create pieces that evoke the feeling of being by the sea. Having grown up by the coast her marketing career required her to relocate to ‘land locked’ areas like Switzerland and the Midlands for 20 years. The absence of the beach in her daily life served to heighten her desire to return home. Since moving back, she has become interested in what the coast represents - a sense of freedom and possibility and a place one can escape the stresses of daily life and connect with nature on a deep level.
Her coastal work is not only about capturing the physicality of the sea, or the joy of a day at the seaside, but also its emotional and spiritual significance. The sea has been a symbol of life, death and transformation throughout human history, and in her work she aims to tap into this timeless symbolism to create works that resonate with viewers on a deeper level.
Her work has been exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and the Mall Gallery in London; Tarpey Gallery in Derbyshire, The Big Art Show, Scotland, the Northern Summer Exhibition and Gallagher & Turner in Newcastle upon Tyne.