Background
Nikola Orpen studied Fine Art at Leeds Polytechnic and Surface Pattern design at Jacob Kramer College of art and design. She has taught fine art and textiles for over 20 years in art schools around Britain and Nikola now divides her time between South West France and England, painting a lot and teaching less.

Her work and inspirations
Nikola has always been allured by repetition, colour and texture. It was a natural move therefore, to transfer textile techniques into her paintings. She combines dyeing, painting and print alongside mark making and stitch to create highly intricate, vibrant, textural surfaces.

Nikola is particularly fascinated with edges “…where colour meets colour or where shape overlaps shape.” These small juxtapositions of colour and texture create rhythms in her work, which can be as simple as variations on a line or mark - the texture of a thread being as important as a brush mark.

Her travels to West Africa had a great impact on her work. The complex but repetitive weavings of the Ewe and Ashanti tribes in Ghana, as well as the dipped and resist dyed fabrics in Mali impressed her greatly. Mary Martin, Bridget Riley, Patrick Heron and Gillian Ayres amongst other western painters have also helped consolidate Nikola’s vision.

Recent Exhibitions
An established artist, Nikola has been exhibiting for years. In the last couple of years, she has exhibited at Carre D’Art Cahors in France, North House Gallery, Manningtree, Essex, Grapevine in Norwich and was a first prize-winner at Fil de L’Art, Puy L’Eveque in France in 2008 and 2007.

In addition, Nikola has had solo shows at the Norfolk Museum of Rural Life, Swan House in Beccles, Suffolk, Brahm Gallery in Leeds and University College in Scarborough. She has also undertaken many commissions, been the artist in resident at numerous places and has been involved with many community art projects. Her work is held in a range of public collections including Huddersfield Library, Lincolnshire & Humberside Arts collection, Lincoln School of Art and Design, Norfolk Rural Life Museum, Jacob Kramer school of Art and Design in Leeds.