ABOUT NICOLA NEWMAN (nee. CHATHAM)
I'm a contemporary Australian artist living and working on the unceded land of the Juru people of the Birri Gubba nation in North Queensland, exploring the relationship between interior experience and the natural world through painting, printmaking, and book arts.
Landscape as Psychological Space
My practice centres on a paradox I've explored for over two decades: we can stand before the most beautiful, awe-inspiring landscape—watching storm clouds roll across the ocean, noticing patterns in tree bark, observing the light shift across water—yet our minds often occupy themselves with concerns about the future or memories from the past. We're somewhere other than where we are.
Since 2008, I've incorporated excerpts from my personal diaries as titles for my paintings, making visible the gap between where our bodies are and where our attention travels. These fragments—day-to-day trivia, neurotic musings, observations—present a more honest acknowledgment of how we actually experience place, particularly when trauma, neurodivergence, or nervous system dysregulation pull our attention away from the present moment.
Nature connects me to something much bigger than myself. It offers perspective, refuge, and a pathway back to regulation. Yet I'm equally interested in how we can be physically present in a beautiful place while mentally absent. Through my work, I aim to create an accurate representation of this segmented, complex experience, celebrating nature without divorcing it from the psychological landscape we constantly inhabit.
Process & Materials
I work primarily with oil paint, drawn to a specific stage in its drying—when it becomes tacky and offers resistance. At this point, I can push the paint with real force, creating edges where atmospheric forms merge and dissolve, building translucent layers where light appears to dance or shift across the scene. I move fluidly between abstraction and representation, exploring atmospheric transitions—the way light, weather, and coastal conditions create fleeting moments between states.
I also work with wood engraving, printmaking, watercolour, and writing—each medium holds a different quality of attention. Some questions are best explored through spontaneous mark-making in oils, where I build up layers, wipe back, blur and smear. Others, through the slow deliberation of wood engraving, where each mark carved into the block requires careful consideration. Still others are most suited to the immediacy of watercolour or the act of writing itself.
I've been influenced by painters who work with luminous washes and atmospheric effects—William Turner's translucent seascapes, Howard Taylor's shimmering Australian landscapes—artists who work at the edge of abstraction where form dissolves into light and colour, or more specifically, create form directly through the play of light and colour.
Writing & Practice
Writing has always been integral to my artistic practice. The act of journaling—daily observations, reflections on place, interior dialogues—is as much a part of my creative process as painting or printmaking.
This interweaving of word and image extends through all my work: from illustrating poetry collections about trauma recovery and connection to nature, to creating journals that invite others to link their inner worlds with seasonal rhythms.
Creative Community & Support
Beyond my studio practice, I've been dedicated to supporting artistic careers and sustainable creative practices since 2015. I founded Flourish: The Art of Creative Living, a year-long online creativity program, and continue to mentor practicing artists through one-on-one coaching and my Creative Hearts Community, an online membership platform offering virtual retreats, workshops, and monthly mentoring calls.
I host immersive creative retreats on tropical islands in North Queensland, including Lady Elliot Island and Magnetic Island, where artists explore painting, printmaking, and nature-based creative practice in small groups. These retreats focus on what it takes to build and sustain a fulfilling art practice, particularly when your nervous system, health, or life circumstances don't fit conventional models.
This work isn't separate from my art—it's an extension of the same investigation into how we create conditions for sustained presence and authentic work. I'm interested in what healthy creative community looks like when we acknowledge that conventional structures don't serve everyone equally, particularly for neurodivergent artists and those with chronic health conditions.
Earlier in my career, I co-directed Moreton Street Spare Room Projects (M.S.S.R.), an artist-run initiative in New Farm, Brisbane, which received a $50,000 Arts Queensland grant to produce a three-part documentary series featuring contemporary Australian artists including Tony Albert, Eleanor and James Avery, and Isabel and Alfredo Aquilizan.
Place & Creative Practice
I've always been drawn to seascapes and coastal landscapes, influenced by years of sailing along the east coast of Australia—first as a child, then again in my late thirties when my husband Andrew and I sailed from Sydney to Townsville, living aboard our 35-foot yacht for three years. Now in my forties, we sail our 22-foot Sonata around North Queensland waters when we can.
As a late-diagnosed Autistic woman, I've come to understand that these experiences at sea are more than subject matter—they're the conditions that allow for the deep creative presence my practice requires. Nature offers space that social environments often don't: room to regulate, to be present without performance, to sustain attention.
I live in our 1940s Queenslander home in the Burdekin region of North Queensland, which I'm restoring with my husband, Andrew.
Current & Upcoming
I'm currently developing new paintings for Waterlines, a joint exhibition with Dr. Paula Payne. The exhibition explores themes of water, voyage, attention, and memory, marking a full-circle moment—Paula taught me to paint with oils 25 years ago, and we're now exhibiting together as peers.
Recent projects include illustrating You Will Find Your Way and Nature Told Me a Secret for poet Naomi Arnold—poetry collections exploring trauma recovery, seasonal rhythms, and connection to nature. Through these drawings, I continue the investigations central to my painting practice: the territory between interior experience and the natural world, and the creative practice that helps us find our way back to ourselves.
PROFESSIONAL BIOGRAPHY
Nicola Newman (née Chatham) (b. 1982, Victoria) is a contemporary Australian artist whose practice explores the relationship between interior experience and coastal environments through painting, printmaking, and book arts.
Living and working on the unceded land of the Juru people of the Birri Gubba nation in North Queensland, Newman's practice has been fundamentally shaped by a lifelong relationship with sailing Australia's east coast—first as a child, then living aboard for three years full-time in her late thirties. As a late-diagnosed Autistic woman, her work investigates the specific conditions that allow for deep creative presence, particularly how nature offers space for regulation and sustained attention that social environments often don't. She gained her Bachelor of Fine Art from Queensland College of Art, Griffith University (2005), and prior to that, a Diploma of Visual Art from Southbank Institute of TAFE.
Since her first solo exhibition, Townsville to Tasmania: Coastal Impressions (2002), Newman has exhibited across Australia and internationally. Her work is characterised by an investigation of landscape as psychological space. Since 2008, she has incorporated excerpts from personal diaries as painting titles, making visible the gap between where our bodies are and where our attention travels—creating tension between the visual experience of nature and the reality of our wandering interior worlds.
Solo exhibitions include Beyond the Horizon, Art Piece Gallery, NSW (2013); It Was a Strangely Happy Day, Anita Traverso Gallery, Melbourne (2011); My Morning Ritual, Caloundra Regional Gallery (2011); Between Here and There, Logan Art Gallery (2010); Cohuna Diaries, Anita Traverso Gallery, Melbourne (2009); With or Without Drought You, Redland Art Gallery (2009); and Over the Garden Fence, Bundaberg Regional Art Gallery (2008).
Working primarily with oil paint, Newman is drawn to a specific stage in its drying—when it becomes tacky and offers resistance—allowing her to push paint with force, creating edges where atmospheric forms merge and dissolve. She moves fluidly between abstraction and representation, exploring atmospheric transitions through the way light, weather, and coastal conditions create fleeting moments between states. Her practice also includes wood engraving, watercolour, and writing, with recent book arts projects including illustrating poetry collections You Will Find Your Way and Nature Told Me a Secret for poet Naomi Arnold, and authoring The Seasonal Journal for Creative Hearts.
Newman received the Espresso Garage Award in the Thiess Art Prize (2006) and has been shortlisted for numerous awards including the Stan + Maureen Duke Gold Coast Art Prize (2007), Redland Art Awards (2006, 2016), Artworkers Award (2006), Churchie Emerging Art Award (2006), and City of Albany Art Prize (2016). She was awarded an Arts Queensland Presentation and Development Grant (2008). International exhibitions include the Örebro International Video Art Festival, Sweden (2008).
Her work is held in public collections including Bundaberg Regional Art Gallery and Royal Brisbane & Women's Hospital, corporate collections including Lendlease, The Star, and Metlink, and private collections in Australia, England, the United States, and New Zealand. The State Library of Queensland and Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts have published catalogue essays written by Newman.
Beyond her studio practice, Newman works with creative practitioners exploring what it takes to sustain an art practice when conventional structures don't fit. She hosts creative retreats on tropical islands and mentors artists through online programs. Earlier in her career, she co-directed Moreton Street Spare Room Projects (M.S.S.R.), an artist-run initiative that received a $50,000 Arts Queensland grant to produce a three-part documentary series featuring contemporary Australian artists including Tony Albert, Eleanor and James Avery. She has been featured in Profile Magazine, Australian Country, and GQ Australia, and interviewed on podcasts including Why Not Art, in-Between, and Mojo Radio Show.
Newman is currently developing work for a joint exhibition with Dr. Paula Payne, exploring themes of water, voyage, attention, and memory—marking a full-circle moment 25 years after Payne first taught her to paint.