Fotheringham Gallery

Nicole says: "I’ve always been interested in life beside the sea leading me to develop a whimsical style that reflects the romantic ideas we have when holidaying at the coast. My paintings are illusions of a life spent scrying into the sparkle of water in harbours, canals and the sea.

I’m interested in light, reflecting on the water, the shadows and glows on boats and buildings. Reflective, refractive, translucence and luminous qualities that I try to convey by using layers of watercolour, high pigment acrylic paints, pure pigments, pearlescent inks and collage.

I spend time in the places I want to paint, doing smaller watercolour and ink paintings, charcoal sketches and taking photographs, I then work in the studio on heavy, stretched watercolour paper building up layers of watercolour, collage, acrylic, and inks. I like to have areas of texture and paint build up and other areas where the paint is thinly layered to give a rich and unique depth to the colours. I juxtapose glossy with matt surfaces.  Its important to me to have a structured composition, a strong drawing element and some expressive marks. The paintings are ‘built’ in a way that implies dimension; as changing, ambient light moves over their surfaces the viewer finds different motifs, elements and qualities."