BIO
Tiffany Nichol is a Salvadorian, Canadian artist born and raised in London, Ontario, Canada. Her education in art began at an arts High school, known as H.B. Beal Secondary. She currently resides in Halifax, Nova Scotia and attends the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design to obtain a bachelors degree in fine arts with a major in ceramics.
Throughout her studies she has gained an interest in the human need to use art as a means of healing from trauma. Art therapy, meditative artistic exercises, and visual story telling are what drive her most current body of work.
Artist Statement
As a ceramicist dealing with my own personal mental health issues I’ve been working to establish a studio practice that embodies the techniques and practices of art therapy. While using the basic principles and elements of design I’ve been constructing simple art therapy exercises and integrating them into sculptural vessels. Another important aspect of using art as a form of therapy is being able to use pictorial narrative to work through past traumas. In many ways, the building process is just as important as the final product. Clay’s natural tangible qualities provide the chance for makers to physically work through their emotions while meditating on it at the same time.
Pots and urns have become the main vessels in which I portray narrative because of my interest in their history. Throughout history pottery has been an extremely common way to tell about cultures and their histories, largely in a low relief or painted on the surface of the pot. My work takes advantage of the surface to create high relief or sculptural elements to portray the narrative, rather than painting on the surface.