In the studio with….Nicola Dale

14 June 2021

Nicola Dale works across sculpture, performance, image and text. Recent highlights include exhibitions, commissions and/or performances for: The Grundy, Blackpool; Echo Echo, Derry; Backlit, Nottingham; Corte Super Nova, Venice; Leeds Arts University; The Portico, Manchester; International 3, Salford; MOSTYN, Wales; Turner Contemporary, Margate; Open Eye, Liverpool and The Whitworth, Manchester.

Nicola has completed residencies with The University of Manchester; Lazio Museums Centre, Rome; Chisenhale Studios, London; The Atlantic Center for the Arts, Florida and Shanghai College of Fine Arts. She also undertakes a variety of collaborations – currently with Adam Smyth, Professor of English Literature and the History of the Book (Oxford) and previously with composer/plawright Ailís Ní Ríain; art historian Sara Riccardi; choreographer/dancer Chloe Aligianni; writer/critic Michael Hampton and photographer Stephen Iles. Nicola is based in Stockport, UK.

As an artist how do you keep up with what is happening in the art world?

The art world is so massive - to preserve my sanity I’m selective about how I keep up to date with it. I only use one form of social media, Instagram, which I use to keep up with individual artists and arts professionals, rather than institutions. (I sign up for newsletters from them instead.) To get a sense of the global picture I look at websites like 4Columns, e-flux, Frieze and Hyperallergic. None of this digital information is as good as getting out there into actual galleries though. I visit whatever or wherever looks exciting art-wise with my partner (also an artist) and close friends. Ordinarily, this line of work allows me to travel and I like exploring what’s going on in the places I’m working. I’ve been lucky to meet artists and curators from all over the world too, which means that sometimes I get to hear gossip from far-flung places.

What is your favourite work of art and why?

I’m going to cheat and name a few because it depends on my mood. For example, if I need to remind myself that everyday annoyances are not worth getting upset about, Agnes Martin’s Night Sea does the trick. I can’t think of another artist who makes me so happy about the vastness of existence and how tiny we are in it. If I’m feeling nostalgic, I’ll think back to the first installation I ever encountered - Ann Hamilton’s Mneme. I had no idea what was going on, but the feeling it gave me was overwhelming. If I’m feeling sassy and like I want to take it up a notch, I’ll look at Leigh Bowery’s Looks (photographed by Fergus Greer) or Marisol’s Women and Dog. There’s an unusual mixture of the joyful and the acerbic in both Bowery’s and Marisol’s work that I enjoy. In more cerebral moments I’ll get lost in Thomas Demand’s Archive. As you can tell from this list, I am drawn to works full of each artist’s own touch. Manual labour is where it’s at.

What is your favourite art book?

Arghhhhhhhhhhh it’s so hard to choose just one. I love reading. I have a particular attraction to books that cross over from literature into art, so I’m going to select Guy Debord’s Panegyric (Vols I and II). I read it once a year. It’s a strange book. He wrote it towards the end of his life. It’s full of riddles and veiled references and humour and defiance. Volume II is practically all images and I particularly appreciate that he gives these the same status as his words. They’re not just illustrations. It’s not an easy read, but it is a worthwhile one. I’ve just started reading Moyra Davey’s Index Cards which looks like it might have firm favourite potential, but it’s still a little too early to tell.

What are you currently working on and what inspired you to make this work?

I’m currently making a huge new body of work. It’s a slowly evolving process – I’m making and showing it in instalments - eventually it will come together as one. I’ve got to do it this way because the work is all hand-made, without assistants or industrial fabrication, so it takes time. The first iteration – The Distressed Look – was shown in a subdued fashion in Leeds last year (no visitors allowed because of lockdown!) and the next iteration is currently part of Remote Work at The Grundy, Blackpool.

The work came about following an invitation to collaborate from Adam Smyth (Professor of English Literature and the History of the Book, Oxford). A book in his collection – an unusual copy of Ovid’s Art of Love – has inspired plans for sculpture, performance, text (Adam’s written some beautiful things), moving image and who knows what else. My aim is to surprise myself – if I feel like I’m doing something I’ve done before, I re-think it. Some of the work has stalled because of the pandemic (unfortunately during the first lockdown I lost my studio space), but I’m nothing if not adaptable, so rather than starting with large-scale sculptures as planned, I’ve tackled the smaller scale stuff, such as The Distressed Look. Those masked heads were conceived before COVID-19 was even a whisper, but they really speak to the moment. I’ve just this weekend finished an animation as part of The Grundy’s online offering. It’s made to be viewed on a phone or tablet.

What would you like a collector to look at and know about your work?

Although I don’t favour any particular medium, there is a unity of purpose in what I do. I’m searching for ways to visualise the ways that we place constraints on body and mind, individual and society. I’m sharing my quest for freedom I suppose. Sometimes I do this through the way I approach a given category – like thinking about performance as sculpture, putting my own body into situations in which I become an object and you become my focal point. At other times it’s about materiality – how I infuse unexpected or impermanent materials with status. Or how I use space to suggest volume. When it comes to solo shows, it’s about creating a thinking space for you to step into and lose yourself in. I will have moved into a new studio by the Autumn and I’d like to extend out an open invitation to view works in progress. I’m especially interested in talking to collectors about how performance is collected because it’s a more versatile collectible than people might imagine.

www.nicoladale.com