about Nicola
SOME WOMEN COLLECT TATTOOS TO MARK THE MOMENTS THAT CHANGED THEM. I PAINT FOR WOMEN WHOSE PAINTINGS DO THE SAME JOB.
In July 2023, just weeks before my mum died, I picked up a paintbrush for the first time. I was 52.
My mum had loved art all her life, so finding painting just as I was losing her felt as though she had passed me the torch.
I started with watercolour, but soon wanted more colour, more texture and more freedom. Now I paint with acrylics and oils instinctively, usually with music playing, following my curiosity and seeing where the painting takes me.
Painting lights me up.
five things you might not know from looking at me
1. I don't have a fancy studio. I'd like one when I grow up. I paint on my kitchen table and in the corner of my home office. (My carpet is wrecked!)
2. You won't catch me swanning round in white dresses on instagram, instead you'll find me with no make-up, hair scraped back in a bun, probably swearing, writing my heart out and painting every moment I can find.
3. I'm autistic so when I get into something, I REALLY get into it.
4. I only have one working eye (the other one sees things like a kaleidoscope (which makes painting the sides hard)
5. I'm mulitpassionate and have two other businesses! All these perspectives feed into my art.
I PAINT FOR THE MOMENT YOU KNOW
I want my work to make you feel something before you have had time to work out why.
I think some paintings are admired and others are recognised. You see one, stop, look again and feel something you cannot quite explain.
The women who buy my work often recognise something of themselves in it. Perhaps the painting marks a loss, a birthday, a decision, a new chapter or simply a moment in life they do not want to forget.
Some of the biggest moments in a woman's life pass without any real ceremony. I think a painting can become a physical marker of those moments and bear witness to a part of your life that mattered.
Years later, it is still there.
YOU DO NOT NEED TO KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ART
You do not need to understand colour theory or know the right words to explain why you love a painting.
If you stop when you see it, pay attention. If you keep going back to look at it, pay attention. If you have already imagined where it might hang, trust that feeling.
Your taste is your own, and that is enough.
If she's yours, you'll know.
BEAUTY THAT TRAVELS FURTHER THAN THE CANVAS
I donate 10% from the sale of every original painting to The Hunger Project, an organisation that invests in women in local communities as a powerful route beyond chronic hunger.
I love knowing that when one woman chooses a painting because it means something to her, that choice can help create possibility for other women too.
The joy I find in making art gets to travel further than the canvas.
