Nicola Woodcock

Originally from the UK, Nicola Woodcock is now a Sydney based artist. Largely self-taught artist, Nicola works from her Terrey Hills studio drawing inspiration from the surrounding bush landscape. She finds the bold forms and colours of Australia’s native flora fascinating. The relatively crude nature of oil pastels encourages the focus on simple line and colour and promotes a use of decisive, gestural marks.

Nicola has been a finalist in the Northern Beaches Art Prize, the Little Things Art Prize and the York Botanic Art Prize.

“Working through the late Autumn and Winter to produce this body of work I began with collecting the best examples of native flora that I could get my hands on. Winter produces such a bounty of heart-stopping dramatic native flora and I excitedly set up still life arrangements in my studio to showcase these extraordinary flowers. Working directly from life I pare back the arrangement to just the natives, the vessel and their shadows, to shine the spotlight on the extraordinary shapes and colours in front of me. Growing up in the UK I had never seen anything like the Australian native flora until I moved here and I was immediately fascinated by the strong graphic forms and unique hues.”