I am a South African and Namibian artist and illustrator. I graduated from the University of Stellenbosch with a BA degree in Visual Art (Fine Art) in 2015. I have since lived, worked and travelled to various places and cities across Asia. I currently live in Vietnam with my husband and fur-baby, Sam, where I have established my art practise, as well as a yoga & meditation studio. My art practise is in large part an expression of and a response to my personal experience of life and being human. I am someone who feels everything very deeply and can suffer from episodes of severe anxiety and emotional storms. In coming to terms with and accepting who and how I am, my yoga & art practices have become indispensable to my mental wellness. These practices serve as anchors, allowing me to create space for and sit with that which is uncomfortable, as well to be present for and appreciate the small and everyday things in life.
I am a multi-disciplinary artist working across the fields of painting, photography, drawing and illustration. I have a deep fascination with colours, textures and patterns and enjoy exploring and experimenting with them in my work. I recently discovered my love for illustrating children's picture books, and hope to write and illustrate many more in the years to come.
"Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible."
~Thich Nhat Hahn, Zen Buddhist Master
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I am represented by M Studio Community.
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EXHIBITIONS & AWARDS
2024 Picture This! (World Wide Picture Book Illustration
Competition) Winner, South Africa
2024 "Pim, The Rock Who Became a Star" a children's picture book written by Dr. Elzette Fritz and illustrated by Nicola Fouché, is self-published and released on Amazon.
2023 The Topography of Emotion: Mapping Internal Spaces, Atelier Nonne 11, Bamberg, Germany2014, Bank Windhoek Triennially, Namibia
2021/22 Quilting Black Holes Into Planets: An Online Exhibition, www.nicolafouche.com
2020 Hiii Illustration 2018 International Competition Exhibition, Nanjing, China
2020 A Point of Flight: Pop-up Exhibition, Hermanus, South Africa
2019 Art For Heart Exhibition & Charity Auction, Shanghai, China
2017 Booknesses Book Art Exhibition, FADA Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2017 Post-Presence: An Instagram Gallery Takeover, San Francisco, United States of America
2015 Visual Arts Department of Stellenbosch University Graduate Exhibition, South Africa
2015 Sasol New Signatures Top 100 Exhibition, South Africa
2015 Barclays l’atelier Top 100 Exhibition, South Africa
2014 Bank Windhoek Triennially, Namibia
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Work held in the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Namibia
ARTIST'S STATEMENT
As an artist, I have always felt that it is of great significance to deeply consider why I do what I do. Why make art at all? What arises from within, even during times of acute distress, is not so much an answer as a profound desire to create. I create, because it not only aids me in understanding the world in which I live, but it is, more importantly, my why for being in the world.
The work I create in my studio helps me to process and move through both my internal, and the external world. Our modern world can be an overwhelming place, the ups and downs of life continuing at an enormous speed without respite. I have found, over the years that my studio has become a sort of refuge, offering me a place in which to stop, to pause and to tune in to my own inner landscape. I use colour and line to bring outwards the texture and shape of the topography of an otherwise imperceptible landscape. The internal world is home to emotion and a surreal dream-logic; their languages spoken in hues, pigments, striations and unfamiliar formations. As my external and internal circumstances vary and change, so do the mediums and colours I gravitate towards, the patterns and textures which emerge and the shapes which come into being.
As a multi-disciplinary, mixed-media artist I work on various bodies of work simultaneously. Each medium that I work in has its own language, peculiarities and particular kind of expression. These differences between mediums allow me to visually articulate different aspects of my vast internal landscape. Some mediums, like illustration, allow for a greater degree of control, a certain moulding of the medium to create what I intend. Whereas, with others, it is the medium which directs my hand. Though the artworks which emerge may grow and evolve over time, the journey remains the same.
