Born in Romania (Romanian and Hungarian origins). Lives and works in Liverpool.
'Originally from Romania, Nicole has been based in Liverpool since 1998. She has exhibited widely both here and around Europe and has been awarded many accolades and scholarships. The artist has a background in ceramics and glass which is reflected in her approach to her two dimensional work. Her studies of Biology and Medicine have influenced her work and research and this can be seen in her predominant subjects of the natural structures of phenomena such as water and light and in subjects such as: Structures, Microcosms, Rhythm and Time flow.' (Lucy Byrne)

‘My work is the result of imagination and study/research. Analysing individual inner resources and details from the Microcosmic scene, I approach various techniques and media such as graphic, painting, collage, ceramic, mixed media and photography and sometimes installation, to explore and communicate new visions. I intend to create an art which acts in many ways as healing therapy.’(NB)

Statement

07/09/06

“Instant Thoughts or, Poetry on Ice”

‘ Expressions or traces of thoughts, which seem to have a vibration in space, a sort of flowing or static energy. ‘

I endeavoured to use organic ingredients, directly or indirectly and motivate the energy found in organic material, as well as the vibrations or sonority of these used ingredients after firing.
Tactile sculptures suggest ‘touching’ the thoughts, as with a magic touch and transforming thoughts into ‘Sound’/vibration, or into something material part of the Real world. The Sound would then substitute the communicative desire, the diversity of ways that a thought can be perceived by those outside me.
To me, the ‘sound’ impression provoked by touching the tactile sculptures (after biscuit firing), is organic and musical as my intentions are to make them sound as music; but each of us would interpret this in a different and personal way.
I played with my work performing sonority experiments using my fingers and later a thin bamboo stick. The sound was amazing to me and therapeutic;
I associated this with voices of my thoughts and took it as my own little discovery. The expressions of thoughts and an equivalent of needed responsive vibration. Still instantly and suggesting communication or sound of thoughts, sometimes I draw/trace spontaneous lines and write words on the surfaces I create just as writing a poetry line by scratching with a metal piece or by using nails directly to put words or letters together.

Technically, I used paper-clay recycling both paper and clay, and I intended to obtain light, porous sculptures, in which the textural would alternate empty spaces, as sound or noise would alternate silence or harmony of sound. As an analysis of the used work ingredients as noticed that somehow, I used in principle the main 5 Universal symbols, and therefore symbolised indirectly my personal Eurhythmy: Fire - used to melt the wax and fire the ceramic work; Earth – used in the shape of the clay used; Water - used to soak recycled paper to obtain the paper paste necessary for making paper-clay; Metal – in the shape of nails/pins, Nature – in the shape of the paper coming from Trees and dried flowers/ plants.

The wax on canvas works which also feature in this exhibition, relate to energy release or energetic movement, which again to me, has to do with the kind of sonority or musicality of thoughts or memories that instantly appear in mind due to various associations or flash-back. It is a sort of self-induced psycho-analysis that I do to myself; better said self-analysis: a visual encounter of the inner, of the unspoken fragments of present or past. The exhibition topic relates to the lyrical aspect of my artistic approach and associative suggestions.

2006 © Nicole Bartos