1960-

Nicola Hicks was born in into a family of well-established artists. She studied at Chelsea School of Art (1978-82) and at the Royal College of Art (1982-85), during which time she was chosen by Elisabeth Frink for the annual Artist for the Day exhibition at the Angela Flowers Gallery in 1984.

At a time when London was enjoying fame as the capital of punk culture and the art world was focused on abstract and conceptual art, with sculptures often conceived as ‘installations’, Hicks’s interest in animal forms made her feel out of step with her contemporaries. However, the image of a life-sized dying bull made of straw and hessian was the beginning of a long-standing relationship with the Angela Flowers Gallery (now Flowers East Gallery), where she held her first solo exhibition in 1985. Since then she has exhibited in Paris, India, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, and her works have been included in public collections in Japan.

Hick's early animal sculptures were often as imaginary as they were real, portrayed as sentient beings. Hicks’s mature works examine the relationship of human beings and animals, who have, she maintains, precious qualities in common, ‘the qualities we are deeply in touch with subconsciously and may be totally out of touch within our conscious state.’