London-based artist Nicola Hicks is fascinated by reinventing animal figures with bold intention as a means of cathartic play. Her pure, raw emotional connection drives her to work and instills her love for the craft in each piece. She "loves the magical feeling of having something evolve at her fingertips, that she is making something live that hasn't lived before."
Hicks captures the transcendental power of beings with an extraordinary intensity that eclipses mere visual fact or scientific anatomy. Elephants, bears, swans, dogs, or Minotaurs, Hicks' art radiates an archaic energy and is far more a spiritual study of life- human, animal or otherwise- than a formal study of animals. Her practice is rooted in her empathy for the creatures she creates, and she asserts her art has nothing to do with reality but rather with evoking a visceral response. She is far less interested in her work closely resembling a particular animal; rather, she wants the figure to be that animal in essence and in spirit.
Hicks artistic practice has long prioritized methods for lessening the gap between thought and making. In her large-scale drawings, constructed from quickly tearing off craft paper in large sheets, and drawing with charcoal, chalk, and pastel, she is able to swiftly, subconsciously and confidently unleash the figure bursting through her imagination. Some parts of these animals are left unfinished, as Hicks is unconcerned with those elements not integral to the figure's essence. To realize her creations, Hicks needs her materials to be adaptable. The moment a work feels "terribly finished and a bit dead," Hicks throws it away and starts again from the beginning. She creates her three-dimensional work in a similar nature through a unique sculpting process that involves plaster and straw. There is straw strewn about Hick's studio (she has always surrounded herself with animals), which she continually gathers and mixes with plaster to quickly erect a figure. Due to the delicate nature of her chosen materials, the final sculpture is often cast in bronze. These sculptures appear as if walking up out of the earth from which they came, powerful, fleshly and noble.
Nicola Hicks was born in London in 1960 and studied at Chelsea School of Art and the Royal College of Art. The daughter of two artists, Hicks, grew up producing art. She became an established presence among the artists of her generation at the young age of 25. In 1995, Hicks was awarded an MBE for her contribution to the visual arts. Hicks' sculptures and drawings have been presented in numerous international museums and galleries. Hicks has completed several public commissions, including large-scale sculptures at Schoenthal Monastery, Langenbruck, Switzerland and in Battersea Park, London. Solo exhibitions include Flowers Gallery, London and New York City; St Paul's Cathedral, London; Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, United States; and Tayloe Piggott Gallery, Jackson Hole, United States, among others. Hicks' work was included in The Universal Addressability of Dumb Things, curated by Mark Leckey, as part of the Hayward Touring series at venues across the UK during 2013. Hicks' work can be found in the collections of the Tate Gallery in London, the Hakone Open Air Museum in Kanagawa, Japan, and the Castle Museum in Norwich, Contemporary Art Society, Government Art Collection, and the National Museum of Wildlife Art, among many others. In 2023, Hicks was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Sculptors. Hicks lives and works in London.