Bio
Nicky Thompson is a New Zealand contemporary artist and painter based in Cromwell in the South Island. Nicky is known for her large landscape paintings of New Zealand mountains, rivers, and lakes, many featuring native birds and intricately detailed lace veils or tapa cloth. Experienced in the use of both oil and acrylic paints, Nicky draws from her own intimate experience of the New Zealand landscape as gained during her many hikes and trips around the South Island with her partner, Mike.
I like to think my work evokes a peaceful and restful feeling. I love to capture a moment in time, when for a split second you stop and almost feed on something that slows your breath. Nature has lent me these moments. Inspiration for my work comes from my love of our surroundings that we are so privileged to have.
On the depiction of lace and tapa cloth in her paintings, Nicky has said that for her it is about the movement the fabric lends to the work and the stories each piece tells. Lace patterns have histories in European culture, just as tapa cloth contains stories that speak to cultural identities and histories in the Pacific.
My work has a common theme of our native birds, their diverse nests and feathers, combined with layers of fragile voile lace and highly tropical patterned fabrics intertwined with crisp glass vessels or placed with naïve, organic shaped urns. Movement is created with a wispy breeze playing through the fabrics and allowing a feather or two to float gently across, often coming to rest on a delicate flower—a quiet, peaceful time. Sometimes I use tapa cloth with its illustrated stories. I mix acrylic, oils, conte sticks, oil pastel, and resin together to create this feeling of quiet tranquillity. A private moment suspended in time with paint forever.
Nicky studied graphic design at Auckland Institute of Technology and worked for an advertising agency for a number of years before taking a job with Finished Artist Auckland Type Setters in the mid-80s. She worked on private and commercial commissions in her spare time, including murals for children’s rooms (many featured in the NZ House and Garden magazine and the Herald newspaper). She also completed a large commission for Starbucks and another for the Belgium Beer House Restaurant. Nicky began working as a full-time painter in 2005 with her first solo exhibition held at Art by the Sea in 2007. She has had a number of solo exhibitions since and participated in many group shows through Art by the Sea.