Profile
For the past four decades, British artist Nicola Hicks' practice has centred around a world of heroic sculptural figures, exploring an anthropomorphic relationship to the animal world through portraits of humanised creatures and beast-like humans.
Hicks' works are unashamedly raw, her subjects ranging from a herd of worn out circus horses balancing on shaking legs, to a decaying, crow covered, ornamental bridge.
Never afraid to shy away from darker content, in Hicks' 1986 work The Fields of Akeldama (The Fields of Blood) the artist repurposed a field in West Cork, carving the forms of dead and dying animals out of Irish clay; all only to be washed away by the rain, recalling scenes of animals revealed after a flood. Hicks now predominantly sculpts in plaster, casting her works later in bronze - due to this process her sculptures are at once monumental and vulnerable. Alongside her sculptural practice Hicks creates drawings using charcoal on brown paper. Hicks believes that both practices are mutually beneficial and reliant on the other.
Nicola Hicks received a BA from the Chelsea School of Art in 1982, followed by an MA in 1985 from the Royal College of Art, London. In 1995 Hicks was awarded an MBE for her contribution to the visual arts.
Hicks’ sculpture and drawings have been presented internationally in museums and galleries including a major 2013-14 solo exhibition at the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven. Hicks has numerous works on public display including the Crouching Minotaur at Schoenthal Monastery, Switzerland and Muscle and Blood at 600 Lexington Avenue, New York.
BIOGRAPHY
1960 Born, London
1978/82 Chelsea School of Art
1982/85 Royal College of Art
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2021
Dump Circus, Flowers Gallery, London
2018
Nicola Hicks, Flowers Gallery, New York
Nicola Hicks, Tayloe Piggott Gallery, Wyoming, USA
2017
Wabbling Back to the Fire, Flowers Gallery Kingsland Road, London
2015
Pause, Flowers Gallery, Cork Street, London
Tayloe Piggott Gallery, Wyoming, USA
2014
Yale Centre for British Art, New Haven, USA
Nicola Hicks, Flowers Gallery, New York
2013
Sorry, Sorry Sarajevo, St Pauls Cathedral, London
2012
Close Up, Flowers Gallery, Cork Street, London
2011
Aesop’s Fables, Flowers Gallery, Kingsland Road, London
2010
Cliffe Castle Museum Keighley, Bradford
2009
A Walk in the Park, Flowers Gallery Cork Street, London
2008
Circus, Flowers Gallery, Cork Street,
Abbott Hall, Kendal
2004
Flowers Gallery, New York
Sculpture at Schoenthal Monastery, Langenbuck, Switzerland
Monuments to Love, Flowers East, London
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2022
Royal Academy Summer Show
Subterranean, Amos Rex, Helsinki, Finland
Forever in the Now, The Lightbox, London
2019
Royal Academy Summer Show
Photographs | Contemporary Art: Recent Gifts and Acquisitions, Yale Center for British Art
2018
Push the Boat Out, The Art Academy, London
2016
Pop-Up Exhibition of Flowers Gallery Artists, Nockart Gallery, Hong Kong
2015
Silent Movies Art Exhibition, Q Car Park, Cavendish Square, London
The British Figure, Flowers Kingsland Road, London
Face to Face, The Baker Museum, Artis-Naples, USA; Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, USA
2013
The Universal Addressability of Dumb Things, Hayward Gallery Touring exhibition; Venice Biennale,
Italy; The Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool; Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham; De La Warr Pavillion,Bexhill on Sea
2012
12 British Artists, Flowers New York, USA
2010
Exhibitionism, The Art of Display, The Courtauld Institute of Art, London
2009
Drawing Inspiration, Abbot Hall Gallery,
2004
Sculpture in the Park, Ayckley Heads, Durham
Presence, Lincoln Cathedral, Lincoln
2002
Mirror-Mirror, Self Portraits by Women Artists, National Portrait Gallery, London
2000
Holland Park Sculpture Exhibition, London
Wild Tigers of Bandhavgarh – The Burrell Collection, Glasgow, Scotland
1999
The Shape of the Century-100 years of sculpture in Britain, Salisbury Cathedral; Canary Wharf, London
Animal, Musee Bourdelle, Paris, France
1998
British Figurative Art: Drawings for Sculptures, Galerie Rachlin Lemarié Beaubourg, Paris,
Foundations of Fame, The London Institute
The Body Politic, Wolverhampton Art Gallery
1996
The Hare, The City Gallery, Leicester
Hove Museum and Art gallery