Edgework Artist Profile #3: Nicky Hirst

#nothere63 by Nicky Hirst

As part of our collaboration with Edgework an artist-led cross-disciplinary journal and store with an emphasis on place, we are running a series of monthly profiles of the artists here on Elsewhere. The third artist in our series is Nicky Hirst: 

Nicky Hirst’s work is best described as an exploration of serendipity, where sources may be places, objects or words. After studying Fine Art followed by Art and Architecture she has pursued a parallel practice, working both in the studio and collaboratively producing diverse projects for the public realm. 

She takes photographs as a daily discipline, like a diary, taking note of preoccupations and looking more closely at connections and the unintentional consequences of the everyday. Both of her Instagram accounts reflect an interest in material already in circulation. She categorises her Instagram images with hashtags such as #causeandeffect63 #shadows63 and #glazed63 and has published a series of postcards (Available from Edgework) featuring her #nothere63 double yellow line photographs.

#causeandeffect63 by Nicky Hirst

Elemental Works 2012-2019 are an on-going series of visually paired images. Mark Twain once said, ‘There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope.’ These works operate within this terrain as they started life elsewhere, from another source, second hand, borrowed. Hirst states, ‘I feel the shapes of the diptych rather than think them. The limitless photographic pairings create new unspoken narratives, each with its own internal logic such as similarity, difference, scale, poetry, chance and humour.’ 

Elemental 225 by Nicky Hirst

Forthcoming exhibitions include: Off the Page | Another Place Press at The Northern Eye International Photography Festival from 7 – 20 October 2019. The exhibition features artists published by independent publisher Another Place Press and includes two other Edgework artists, Victoria J Dean and Iain Sarjeant. A selection of images from Hirst’s Elemental Works is also included in Coventry Biennial 2019 which runs from 4 October to 24 November 2019.

Nicky Hirst on Edgework
Instagram
Elemental Works on Instagram
Website