Nicola Hick's Artist's Statement and Bio

"Nicola's work searches back deep into the human psyche to confront its most ancient , atavistic fears in making sense of a dangerous world, calling upon myths and fables as sources for imagery, from the transfiguration of Zeus to Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream." - William Packer

"Nicola Hicks's sculpture and drawing practice has focused upon heroic, humanized animals and mythic, beast-like humans. From the moment she burst upon the wider public stage, there has been no doubting her remarkable talent. While still at the Royal College of Art, she quickly established an immediate presence among the artists of her generation as a serious and substantial figure. She was remarkable on every count, for she flew in the face of the critical expectations of those days not just in the nature of the actual imagery she celebrated--figurative, romantic and expressive--but also in the direct and gleeful joy she took in the physical making of these things."

Brief Bio Nicola Hicks was born in London in 1960 and studied at Chelsea School of Art and the Royal College of Art. In 1995 Hicks was awarded an MBE for her contribution to the visual arts. Hicks’ sculpture and drawings have been presented in numerous international museums and galleries and she has completed several public commissions including large scale sculptures at Schoenthal Monastery, Langenbruck, Switzerland. Recent solo exhibitions include Tayloe Piggott Gallery, Wyoming USA; Sorry, Sorry Sarajevo, St Paul’s Cathedral, London; Sculpture by Nicola Hicks at the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, United States; and her 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.