Nicola Anthony
Nicola Anthony is a British artist known for metal text sculptures and burned paper assemblages, which give glimpses into the effects of displacement, migration, intergenerational trauma, and emergent behaviour in society.
Nicola is known for her signature metal text sculptures and burned paper assemblages (as featured in the New York Times, The Irish Times, RTE News, Harper’s Bazaar, Architectural Record (USA), Blouin Artinfo, BBC Berkshire, Irish Arts Review, Irish Independent, and Abu Dhabi TV among others). She has been said to have “an innate ability to transform words into messages of profundity, her work forming a journal of a thousand souls”.
Select public sculptures are in London Villiers Street, National University of Ireland (commissioned by European city of culture 2020), Aspen Colorado (USA), USC Shoah Foundation (USA), Marina Bay (Singapore), Lim Chin Tsong Palace (Myanmar), and National Design Centre (Singapore).
Nicola also mentors young artists, speaks at arts events, and currently sits on the board of the Royal Society of Sculptors, where she holds the role of Diversity Champion as part of her trusteeship. Her artworld accolades include being shortlisted for the Sovereign Art Prize in 2020 for her artwork in Singapore, and the Sovereign Asian Art Prize in 2021 for her work across Europe and Asia on the subject of the migrant crisis. In 2019 whilst based in Dublin she received a ‘New Voices Of Ireland’ award. Nicola has recently had 3 works acquired by Ingram Collection of British Art, has been invited to create a drawing series in response to John Behan’s work which now sits in a major public collection, and has been spotlighted by SmArtify as one of 50 noteworthy female artists in UK collections.
Notable exhibitions include her recent appointment as artist-in-residence for the UK Government at the UK Pavilion in Dubai (part of Dubai Expo), a solo exhibition at Singapore Art Museum (2017), and exhibited works at the Kuala Lumpur Biennale (2018).
Her artwork about the environmental impact of Fukushima has travelled to museums globally, including National Museum of Marine Science & Technology, (Taiwan); Gudang Sarinah Ekosystem, (Indonesia); National Art Gallery (Malaysia); Aceh Tsunami Museum (Indonesia); Rias Arc Museum (Japan); Bangkok Art and Culture Centre. In more recent work about the environment, her sculpture commissioned by the UK Government (‘See things Differently’) was noted as one of 10 Satellite exhibitions around the COP26 conference in 2021.
Nicola graduated from University of the Arts London and Loughborough University in the early 2000s, where her degree exhibition showcase was sponsored by Tate Britain, and she subsequently won the Astrazeneca Commission 2006 upon graduation. She now works between her two artist studios in Dublin and Singapore, and is also a trustee for the Royal Society of Sculptors in the UK.
www.nicolaanthony.co.uk 