For the past four decades, British artist Nicola Hicks’ practice has addressed the universal, and often darker aspects of humanity, critiquing our social systems through the use of contemporary allegory.
In October this year, Nicola Hicks will present Dump Circus, a large-scale installation imagining the city as an urban wasteland, where the natural world has been ravaged and suffocated by greed and waste. Hicks’ sculptural vignette, comprising mixed media sculpture and sound, encompasses both a horrifying account of human havoc on the planet and hopeful speculation on the irrepressible endurance of life.
Nicola Hicks was born in London in 1960 and studied at Chelsea School of Art and the Royal College of Art. In 1995 Hicks was awarded an MBE for her contribution to the visual arts. Hicks’ sculpture and drawings have been exhibited in numerous international museums and galleries. Selected solo exhibitions include Sorry, Sorry Sarajevo, St Paul’s Cathedral, London; Sculpture by Nicola Hicks at the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, United States; and her work was included in The Universal Addressability of Dumb Things, curated by Mark Leckey, as part of the Hayward Touring series at venues across the UK. Hicks has numerous works on public display including the Crouching Minotaur at Schoenthal Monastery, Switzerland and Muscle and Blood at 600 Lexington Avenue, New York. A major monograph Nicola Hicks: Keep Dark (Elephant) was published in 2017, with accompanying texts written by David Mamet, Candia McWilliam, Max Porter, Matilda Pye, Will Self and Patterson Sims.
