Nicola Bannerman
From Nicola
“I am inspired by almost everything around me, includingarchitecture, furniture, nature, fashion and other artists’ work. This leads me to work quite broadly, making everything from jewellery to metal objects, lights, clothes and accessories. I use a range of materials including precious metals and gemstones, stainless steel, anodised aluminium, paper and fabric. I also enjoy teaching, and I have taught several short evening courses in basic jewellery and object making which I find very inspiring and rewarding.”
About Nicola
Nicola’s art has ranged quite broadly, from small wearables to objects and installations of industrial proportions. She draws inspiration from shapes, textures and rhythms in the natural world, especially recurring forms such as cocoons, waves, crystalline structures and spirals, all of which are commonly appropriated as symbols for human needs and emotions: self protection, persistence, connectedness and perpetuation. Her work often contains oblique references to such themes.
With a sense of irony, Nicola’s concern for the underlying vulnerability of humanity is worked out through the hardest materials of nature, its metals and gemstones. Indeed, the interplay of fragility and durability sometimes provokes a gentle determination to make the materials behave in unnatural ways, to set form in opposition to material.
For all this, her work is not overtly declaratory. In a world abuzz with artists wanting to make statements about one thing or another she believes that objects should be, if not useful, at least ornamental.
Education
- 2002 - Diploma In Diamond Technology, Gemmological Association of Australia.
- 2001 - Diploma In Gemmology (Certificate IV), Gemmological Association of Australia.
- 2001 - Certificate in Jewellery Design, Gemmological Association of Australia.
- 1998 - Metal Restoration, Sydney Institute of Technology
- 1998 - Bachelor Of Visual Arts (Honours), Sydney College of the Arts, Sydney University
Exhibitions
- 2006 - Element at 1000°, Avalon NSW
- 2005 - JMGA selected group exhibition: Collections, at Pyrmont Studios, Sydney.
- 2004 - Boys Toys, at Gallery Onefivesix, Sydney, NSW.
- 2003 - Attachment, at Gallery Onefivesix, Sydney, NSW.
- 2003 Made, at Gallery Onefivesix, Sydney, NSW.
- 2003 Knot, at The Australian Council for the Arts, Sydney, NSW.
