Nicola Bealing In Conversation with Dr Virginia Button

Cornwall-based artist Nicola Bealing is the recipient of the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society’s Medal Award (cum laude) for Art 2023, and will be in conversation with The Poly ‘s Chair, Dr Virginia Button to talk about her work.

Nicola is a narrative painter admired for her overactive imagination and curious intellect.  Her intriguing, unsettling images often explore the tradition of the Carnivalesque, particularly its darker undercurrents, using humour to push the boundaries of taste. 

Earlier this year Matt’s Gallery in London showcased her recent work in a two part exhibition ‘The Borough’ and ‘Dead-man’s Fingers’. The latter is a body of work made during lockdown when total immersion in an alien world seemed a logical response to darkness beyond the studio door. The works developed into an intense investigation of heightened, imagined sub-marine landscapes as both places of eerie beauty and latent threat.  The series comprises paintings and a series of newly developed sculptural elements which take their macabre title from the common name of a coral – Alcyonium Digitatum.

Nicola is an award winning artist, notably receiving the prestigious Bryan Robertson Trust Award (2021), and her work is held in numerous private and public collections, including the British Museum. Just before the pandemic closed borders she spent time in Mexico as the inaugural artist for a new residency exchange programme developed by CAST in Helston with the Centro de las Artes de San Agustín Etla (CaSa) in Oaxaca. She is represented by Matt’s Gallery.

Tickets: £4/£6

A £1 Poly Fund payment is added to each ticket sold