ABOUT

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MY WORK

 

I draw and paint plants that commonly inhabit wild spaces such as roadsides, edges of recreation grounds and wildflower meadows. I am currently investigating the marginal plants of the River Crane in Isleworth, West London.

 

My plant drawings are large-scale, celebrating the more majestic plants and highlighting smaller plants and weeds. They are often drawn with exposed, soil-encrusted roots, revealing their source of life and energy but also their vulnerability and fragility. I wish to call attention to both their importance and fragility in our ecology and to consider our human relationship with plants and the natural world.

 

I work mainly in charcoal, making smudges and underdrawings part of the description. But I am also exploring making ink, using river water and local oak galls, and home-made paper, using river water in the pulp. I have also drawn in charcoal on linen that has been buried under the riverbed, gathering a sort of ‘memory’ of the river in marks.

 

My paintings are mainly in oil on canvas. I am currently painting views of the River Crane, and am trying to give the sense of joy I get from my wanderings in this wild oasis in such an urban environment. My earlier botanical paintings seek to capture a sense of the plant and its vulnerability. As with my plant drawings, the plants appear as if just pulled from the ground. I also have made a small series of paintings depicting cut weeds in vases. The weeds are common, often disregarded species, such as daisies, dandelions, nettle and bindweed. Painted as displays in valued vases I was interested the paradox of their beauty and value versus their overlooked status.

 

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BIO

 

Nicki Rolls is a contemporary artist based at Redlees Studios in Isleworth. Her large scale charcoal drawings of wild flowers and weeds explore the fragility of the natural world. She regularly exhibits her work and is currently in a touring exhibition of the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize shortlist, 2023. Her recent shows include RupturEXIBIT, Hampton Wick, 2023 and One Paved Court, Richmond, 2022. She graduated in Fine Art, BA from Central Saint Martins College of Art, 2005 and MA from Wimbledon College of Art, 2011.  She gained First Prize Student Award in the Jerwood Drawing Prize, 2011.

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CV 

 

Awards

Shortlisted for Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize, 2023

First Prize, Diana Armfield Drawing from Observation Award, London, 2023

First Prize Jerwood Drawing Prize, Student Award, 2011

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Solo Exhibitions

RuptureXIBIT, London, 27 May - 1 June, Carbon and Cellulose, 2023

One Paved Court, London, Oct 19 - Nov 6, Nothing is Small in Nature, 2022

Hayward Gallery's Concrete Cafe, London, 27 March - 3 June, On and On, 2012

  

Selected Group Exhibitions and Screenings

Redlees Gallery, London, Everything glowed with a gleam; Yet we were looking away!, 2023

Mall Galleries, London, Pastel Society of Annual Exhibition, 2023

Mall Galleries, London, Royal Society of British Artists Annual Exhibition, 2022

​Air Gallery, Altrincham, Manchester, Merry-Go-Round Broke Down, 2018

​Filter4, Basel, Switzerland, Searching the Line, 2017

Palazzo Flangini, Venice, Italy, Contemporary Venice 2016/7

A.P.T Gallery, London, 17 March - 4 April, Colliderscape, 2016

​Bargehouse, London, 5-8 Nov, We all Draw @ UAL, 2015

Tate Britain, 7 February, Late at Tate Britain 1840s GIF Party, 2014

Espacio Gallery, Bethnal Green Road, 23 May - 3 June, Second Nature, 2014

Jerwood Space, London, 13 September, Jerwood Drawing Prize, 2011

Arthouse, Deptford, 24 September, Deptford X, 2010

St Pancras Church Crypt, London, Life cycles, 2007

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CONTACT

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If you have any enquiries, please contact njrolls@hotmail.com or 07906 220798.