Overview
This selection celebrates British artist Nicola Hicks’s sustained examination of horses as subjects over several decades, through which movement, physical presence and emotional intensity are explored. The horse occupies a singular place within the history of art, carrying centuries of symbolic and cultural associations as an enduring image of power, vitality and freedom. Hicks engages with this rich tradition while resisting many of its conventions. Rather than presenting the horse as a symbol of authority or spectacle, she approaches the animal as a living presence - instinctive and psychologically resonant. Working through energetic mark-making and close observation, Hicks seeks less to describe the horse than to evoke its spirit and immediacy.
Built from urgent charcoal marks, smudges and absences, the drawings of Nicola Hicks carry the physicality of her renowned sculptural practice, while their unfinished edges leave room for uncertainty, allowing movement and emotion to remain active within the image. Instead of recording anatomy alone, Nicola Hicks evokes temperament, allowing the horse to emerge through rhythm and instinct. Charged with intensity, the works occupy a space between representation and memory, where physical form becomes inseparable from psychological presence.
ABOUT NICOLA HICKS