Artist Talk with Andrew Nicholls at NAS

Andrew Nicholls, a finalist in the 24th Dobell Drawing Prize presents an artist talk at the National Art School (NAS). Recorded live on 12th April 2025 offering insight into his practice and the work selected for this prestigious award. 

Known for his meticulously detailed drawings, Nicholls explores themes of history and cultural exchange. This talk provides a unique opportunity to engage with his creative process and the broader dialogue surrounding contemporary drawing.

-------------

Andrew Nicholls is one of Western Australia’s most renowned and beloved contemporary artists, celebrated for his high-baroque and high-camp drawings, ceramics and photography, in addition to his expansive site-responsive curatorial projects, which have drawn inspiration from heritage and museum sites across Western Australia, Italy and the United Kingdom.

Nicholls’ work explores how power has been expressed through aesthetics during the past three thousand years of Western culture. In particular, his works draw attention to seemingly benign or trivial artistic or folk traditions that nonetheless reveal profound insight into the political, social and economic context from which emerged. In recent years, this has particularly included the history of Western Magick, as a highly-subversive force on the fringes of Western culture.

The artist explains:

“As a lapsed Catholic boasting over two decades as an agnostic-atheist, during the 2020 lockdowns I was some-what bemused to find myself re-establishing a spiritual practice, when I was drawn to begin performing ritual magick. For me, as with practitioners throughout history, this provided a profound space of composure and empowerment from which to enact change in a world that had seemingly descended into chaos. My artmaking has subsequently aligned with this practice, resulting in works with a magickal intent built into them, or which are designed to encourage viewers to partake in ritual acts, or to strengthen my connection with various spiritual entities.”

For 12 years, M Contemporary offered visitors and collectors the opportunity to experience a curated selection of the best emerging Australian artists alongside more established artists from around the world, fostering cross-cultural dialogue and provoking thoughtful reflection on global issues. 

Committed to being progressive, diverse, and nurturing fresh talent, we provide continuous visibility through exhibitions and art fairs.

Visit us in Darlinghurst or explore our artists, events, and available works online.

follow us @mcontemporary & visit https://mcontemp.com/ for more information. 

Join artist Todd Fuller for his artist talk in the gallery during his exhibition of '1940: BASED ON A TRUE STORY', recorded live Friday 13th June 2025.

available to watch on youtube https://youtu.be/7p_OqUKskQY

‘1940-Based on a True Story’, is a speculative history piece focusing on two men who may have been same-sex lovers during World War II. While the evidence around this pair is inconclusive, diary entries and other primary materials suggest a special relationship between a young Australian pilot who died in the Battle of Britain and his older male guardian, who sponsored his aeronautical training after bringing him to England. This piece also highlights the obscured nature of queer history—a consequence of homosexuality historically being illegal, often leading to the erasure of evidence. The elevation of queer history has been an important objective in my practice, aiming to challenge dominant narratives and honouring the lives and relationships of LGBTIQ Australians who were forced into the shadows. In my hand-drawn animation practice, I embrace the imperfections and traces left by the animation process, allowing the medium’s remnants to echo uncertainty and suggest gaps in historical narratives. Through this work, I aim to mobilise whispers of a past, inviting viewers to engage with the spaces between known facts and imagined realities.

Todd Fuller is a well-known Australian Artist whose work extends traditional notions of drawing across film, animation and performance works. Fuller is best known for his hand drawn animations which address a broad range of themes including Queer and Regional Narratives of Australia past and present. His narratives often position audiences to consider connection between person and place, love and loss, commonality, difference and belonging.

He has been awarded a number of residencies that have informed and developed his practice, including time spent at Bundanon Trust, Hill End, Grafton Regional Art Gallery, as well as international stints at the Cite Internationale des Arts in Paris, the British School of Rome, and recently the NG Creative Residency in Provence.

A graduate of Sydney’s National Art School, Fuller has exhibited widely across Australia. He was a finalist in the 2019 Sulman Prize, won the prestigious Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award in 2018, and his work is present in various public and private Australian collections, including the Parliament House Art Collection, Artbank, Sydney Harbour Trust, Museums of HIstory NSW, Maitland Regional Art Gallery, Muswellbrook Arts Centre, Grafton Regional Gallery and the State Library of New South Wales . Alongside his national success, Fuller has gained international attention, with his works in exhibitions in the United States, Italy, France, South Korea, Bangladesh, England, Singapore and Malta.

Follow us on instagram @mcontemporary