Head of Contemporary Studies and Sculpture
He/him
Nicholas Folland is an installation artist who currently lives and works in Adelaide. His practice reconfigures everyday objects and environments to produce uncanny, poetic and unsettling affects. Nicholas is recognised nationally as an artist and has been featured in major exhibitions, collections and publications.
Nicholas is currently our Department Head for both Contemporary Studies and Sculpture. He recently exhibited work at the Art Gallery of New South Wales as part of The National 2019:New Australian Art, multi-venue, curated exhibition showcasing contemporary Australian art.
In 2014 the Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA) hosted a survey exhibition of Nicholas’s practice called, The extreme climate of Nicholas Folland. It presented key examples of his work, made over a ten-year period, alongside works of art from the AGSA’s collection. He was the feature artist of the South Australian Living Artists (SALA) Festival that same year, having been selected as the subject of the annual Wakefield Press monograph on South Australian living artists.
His practice is a reinterpretation of the ordinary and banal. By utilising common domestic materials, repurposed furniture, natural fibres, taxidermy and ice, Nicholas manifests fables of historical reference, exposing cultural differences and tapping into our individual and accumulated sense of identity. By marrying his sculptures with natural elements (ice and heat) he gives agency to these objects offering an opportunity for continued action and reflection. He is captivated by his own family’s historical journey to Australia and references the extreme climates and sometimes ill-fated journeys of explorers.
Nicholas has a Master of Visual Arts from the University of Sydney and a Bachelor of Visual Arts from the University of South Australia. In 1999 he was awarded a Samstag International Visual Art Scholarship allowing him to continue his research in Spain and the Netherlands. His work has been included in numerous high profile exhibitions and has been collected internationally.
Nicholas is represented by Tolarno Galleries.
