Nicole created portraits of iconic international fiddle players especially for the 2012 North Atlantic Fiddle Convention in Derry.
The collection comprised seven major works in oils and gold leaf, symbolic yet realistic portraits of well-known players, five of whom were performing at NAFCo.
The portraits are of Emma Nixon (Australia), Nancy Kerr (England), Natalie Haas (USA), Ado Barker (Australia), Dougie Maclean (Scotland), Martin Hayes (Ireland, USA) and Alasdair Fraser (Scotland, USA).
Along with the oils, she created watercolour portraits of six more fiddlers, using video interviews to produce artworks that combine line drawing, watercolour and photography. The watercolour works included images of Andrew Clermont (Aus), Catherine Fraser (Aus), Brittany Haas (USA), Chris Duncan (Aus), Pria Schwall-Kearney (Aus) and Richard Wood (Can).
The works were originally shown in the Millennium Forum, Derry, where Nicole also presented a paper at the convention at the University of Ulster, entitled Fiddle Icons Confidential: The Making of a Portrait. The paper discussed the artistic and philosophical approach to the creation of the portraits, with film and illustrations of the process of interviewing subjects and creating the works.
The collection has since been exhibited in Townsville and Brisbane.
See Fiddle Icons blog.
