I have just spent an anxious ten days organising packaging and freighting to the USA for my painting “Flying or Falling,.. Heaven Knows”.

The painting was in New Zealand when I was notified that it was the overall winner in the “Night of a Hundred Angels” International juried award in Laguna Beach, California.

I however was in Australia!
Thanks to friends, family, Impressions Art Supplies in Richmond, who crated the painting, and Nelson Importing who freighted it, the painting is now on its way to California.

Whew! There were times when the whole thing seemed impossible as the deadline for arrival was less than three weeks. I must hope that this “angel” flies safely through USA customs without any holdups.  “Anthem for Pfizer” also made the final, but as they are both large paintings and freight costs significant, I had to choose to send the winner only.

I feel very honoured to have two paintings selected as finalists and wish I could be there to see the exhibition.  A share of profits from sales of artwork in the Night of a Hundred Angels exhibition goes to the “Make a Wish Foundation”.

Share this on Twitter, Facebook and more...

The awards are to be judged and winners announced on September 25th. My piece will then be on tour with works of the other finalists and exhibited at:

-St Brigids Hall, Brisbane St, Dubbo (NSW) 26th Sept-17th Oct
-The Scots College, Bellevue Hill, Sydney 22nd-31st October,
-KIKU ARTs, Bungendore from 26th Nov-27th Dec
-Byron Bay from 3rd-31st January.

Share this on Twitter, Facebook and more...

It’s a work that could be described as a response to my time spent living in and exploring Sydney and it’s surrounds, and my subsequent further research on the story of the land. It is my ‘acknowledgement of Country’…

‘River Dreaming’ 2010, Acrylic on Canvas, © Jane Nicol

Limited edition archival quality giclee reproductions by www.gicleeaustralia.com will be available upon application. Please contact me for more details.

There will be further works in this series.

Share this on Twitter, Facebook and more...

fragments of alternity
surface and swim around me like sharks
I feel the sweep and pressure of their passing
yet cannot grasp their shape or know intent

awe full insight
or
pathology

Jane Nicol 2006

This poem accompanies the painting Insight or Pathology (Portal series).

Share this on Twitter, Facebook and more...

Behind each of us male or female, integral in forming the ground of perception on which we stand, is a lineage of women. Our mothers, their mothers and theirs before them, breathed, kissed, nurtured, chastised their truths, struggles, attitudes, and beliefs, their habits and traditions into our deepest unconscious.

These are so entwined in our deepest experiences of infancy that as we grow to individuation and reject the obvious and the uncomfortable, unknowingly we hold the most insidious “truths” of our mothers to be as self evident as the DNA they gave us and the ground we walk on.

In this series of paintings I am searching for the deeper and more stepped back awareness that portraiture requires. In which I seek to see more clearly who these women were and what their legacy is within me, and onward in my children. Painting them against a black ground the environment of their period is removed in an effort to show each only in the context of what is held within them and in their relationship to each other.

I knew them all and am growing to know them more as I descend more deeply into awareness of their presence within my psyche.

My great grandmother Minnie (Mitochondrial Descent No.1) was an imposing living legend in my childhood, until her death when I was 8. Her life had been an exotic legend. No more than 5 foot high, with a baby stashed in a traveling chest behind her she faced down a man-eating tiger with her husband’s gun and could kill a snake with a hatpin at 20 yards. She stands in my memory a fearless and frightening, old lady, imposingly straight, autocratic, elegant and fiercely loving.

Her eldest daughter, Eileen Constance (Mitochondrial Descent No.2) was my much loved mother-grandmother. Her sweet gentle presence and support is always with me. Her martyrdom to those she loved is a trait I have spent much of my life trying to renounce.

My mother Alison Hope Margarett (Mitochondrial Descent No.3) was a part of a generation of women who went to war. Her generation went from sheltered childhood into an enduring reality of sudden traumatic death and destruction. It shaped who she became. Experiences too appalling to be metabolized were shut down, locked away, and papered over with a romantic ideal of reality.

The story and series continues….

Share this on Twitter, Facebook and more...

In the depth of wrenching dark

That open-heartedness, steeped in hot pain and despair, alchemizes into cold, clear Love.

Jane Nicol 2005

Share this on Twitter, Facebook and more...

Holy, Holy, Pfizer merciful and mighty,
Lord of drug angels

Why should I face and befriend pain,
when you offer all-powerful mercy.

I sold my mind, myself,
for that promised moment of relief

Jane Nicol 2005

This poem accompanies the painting Anthem for Pfizer (Portal series).

Share this on Twitter, Facebook and more...

Anthem for Pfizer

Our lives are filled with ways to escape pain. More and more invitations to escape, ~ mind altering substances, virtual reality games, reality TV, toys and lollies, ~ analgesics for the body and mind.
Invitations to step away from the awareness of unfocused, pointless existence. Or perhaps the unimportance of our focus in existence.
Craving comfort and relief we blind ourselves to the consequences of accepting the invitation, the quick fix.

Anthem for Pfizer is inspired by the artist’s experience with the blockbuster prescription medication Gabapentin (Neurontin), manufactured and marketed by Pfizer, the International, multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical company.

More information accompanying the other paintings in the Portal Series will be added as it is written.

Share this on Twitter, Facebook and more...

the dark bright pity of being human

Jane Nicol 2005
This poem accompanies the Illusion/Evolution series of paintings.

Share this on Twitter, Facebook and more...

The Skylark sings

of the year

Jane Nicol 2004

This poem accompanies the painting Song For Old Nick (Portal series).

Share this on Twitter, Facebook and more...