Nicola Nemec lives and works on the North Coast of Co. Antrim.

Born in Belfast in 1972, she has exhibited extensively across the UK and Ireland. In 1994 while exhibiting at a National Graduate Exhibition in London, she was selected from several hundred students to win a SPACE studio award of one year’s tenure. She then continued to work in East London for six years before returning to Northern Ireland.
Since then, she has had regular solo exhibitions in London, and has exhibited with the Cavehill Gallery and Mullan Gallery in Belfast, Gordon Gallery Derry, and Gormley’s Gallery Dublin.
Her work is included in many Public and Private collections worldwide, including The Office of Public Works, and Ecotricity.
She was selected to be an Ambassador with the National ‘It’s Our World’ environmental art project and is an original member of the ‘Human Nature’ art movement. She has recently completed a residency on Achill Island awarded by the Heinrich Boll Association.

The London solo exhibition ‘Land Lies in Water’ was featured on BBC Newsline and Radio Ulster.

 

Her paintings convey an intimate knowledge and continual observation of, the shifting climate, light and atmosphere of the landscape in which she lives. She is interested in the contrast between the distinctive man-made and natural forms within her environment. The local harbours, bog lands, mountains and seascapes are recurring features in the work.

Her practice involves exploring the physical qualities of her chosen media. The spontaneous nature of fluid paint is exploited for its ability to create form organically. Paint is often applied and partially removed achieving subtlety of tone and texture. Her process of painting allows her to revisit a specific ‘site’ or a ‘sense of place’, layering memories and paint to create depth akin to the layering of the landscape itself.

‘Nicola Nemec’s work does not just correspond to one particular place, but a number of related places. Her work is as much about an emotional site as a geographical site, and it is both objective and subjective simultaneously. Her creative process operates between memory, intuition, intellect and the physical reality of the painting. It evokes a powerful sense of the experience of the landscape, where deep understanding exists’
Dr Susan Liggett. Head of the Media Art and Design Research Centre,  Glyndwr University