Nicky Arscott

Nicky is a visual artist who lives in Llanbrynmair. The longer she lives there, the more strange plants and animals appear in her paintings. Nicky has an MA in creative writing from the University of Texas at Austin. She has collaborated with poets from around the world including Mexico, India and the USA to create graphic narratives exploring a diverse range of experiences and contemporary issues. Some of these have been published in journals, others printed as indie comics and one is now used as educational resource for schools through the Arts Council of Wales.

“In my own work I try to create pieces that are like visual poems. I like to experiment with things like metaphor and repetition, and to see how words influence how we interpret images, and vice versa. The paintings I am working on at the moment are on very big canvases and bring in a variety of topics like community hall tea dances, angry ghosts, the reproductive system, addiction, medieval balladry and native ponies of the British Isles. I want to build up a series of paintings that feels like a collection of poetry when you look at them all together.”

WHAT YOU LIKE ABOUT WHAT ORIEL DAVIES DOES

“As a director of arts education company Ennyn CIC, along with artist Elin Crowley, I have worked with Oriel Davies in putting together creative workshops for children and young people from the local community. I really love that Oriel Davies staff strive to make everybody feel welcome in the gallery and that they aim high in terms of the quality of art that is being shown and made there. They are also not averse to taking risks, e.g. letting us bring ferrets and stick insects to the gallery for a somewhat experimental animation workshop.”

A FAVOURITE CULTURAL ARTIFACT

“Those bits of broken crockery you find buried in the garden. Some of them are so old and beautiful! How did they get there? Was there a terrible argument where plates were thrown at the wall? Did a child get a telling off for bumping into the dresser? Did someone feel relief when an unwanted wedding gift finally smashed into pieces? We’ll never know! I find it tragic but also strangely reassuring to feel that any meaning behind the small occurrences of our everyday lives will eventually be swallowed up over time.”