About Nicola Tremain

Each piece arises spontaneously after a period of automatic painting and it’s often not until after the painting is complete that the emotion and story behind it becomes clear. By applying paint with no agenda, I can let go of control, allowing random marks to bloom into flowers or morph into faces. I often work with no real-life reference, or wait until the final stages to refine the likeness of a face, or add detail to a flower. Being able to engage with my feelings and memories while I apply paint in these initial stages allows me to tap into something deeper: to freeze a fleeting frame or dream-like moment. Pressing, smearing, scraping paint onto the surface has been the best way I have found to create a liveliness that captures these moments.