Text - Bio
Nic Mason, With the kitchenalia and banksia posse, 2023, oil on canvas, 61.5 x 153cm
Bio
Nic Mason is a visual artist who lives and works in regional Australia near Bathurst in Wiradjuri Country. She primarily utilises painting and drawing in her art practice.
Nic has held a total of eight solo exhibitions, participated in three two person exhibitions and numerous group shows since her first solo exhibition, WILD in Cowra Regional Art Gallery in 2016. This exhibition kick started her art practice following winning the 2015 Central West Regional Art Award, through Cowra Regional Art Gallery. Nic's most recent solo exhibition, Happenings 2023 occurred at Michael Reid, Murrurundi. In 2022 Nic's solo exhibition, Nicola Mason: Cycle at Bathurst Regional Art Gallery co-occurred with Sidney Nolan: Drought, Robert Hirschmann: Past Night and Hui Selwood: Cubi and other passages.
In 2024 her work was awarded the Early Career Art Award at the Grace Cossington Smith Art Award and Winner of the Inaugural Interior Art Prize through Weswal Gallery, in 2023 her work was Commended in the Gulgong Une(art)hed, in 2021 her work was Runner-up in the painting section of Remagine 2021 Art Prize, and in 2020 her work was Highly Commended in the Adelaide Perry Prize for Drawing. Her works have additionally been selected as a finalists in numerous other national awards including being selected for both the S. H. Ervin Salon des refusés (alternate Archibald portrait and Wynne landscape) exhibition; the Calleen Art Award; Muswellbrook Art Prize; Collie Art Prize; Paddington Art Prize; Redland Art Award; Basil Sellers Art Prize; Nillumbik Prize for Contemporary Art, Lake Art Prize; Milburn Art Prize, John Villers Outback Art Prize, Hornsby Art Prize, Gosford Art Prize, Blacktown Art Prize, Georges River Art Prize, BAM Art Prize, Waverley Art Prize, Hurford Hardwood Portrait Prize, Jenny Birt Award; Macquarie Group Emerging Artist Prize; The Waterhouse Natural Science Art Award; Fleurieu Biennale; Footscray (Tertiary) Art Prize; and the Korea Australia Arts Foundation Art Award along with being a semi finalist in the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize and the Moran Contemporary Photographic Prize.
Her practice has been propelled by a number of residencies, bursaries and grants including her 2024 Squatters Residency, The Foundations, Portland, 2023 Ironbark Residency a collaboration between Stuart Town STA and Orana Arts Inc; 2020 Australian Consortium for In-Country Indonesian Studies (ACICIS) internship / residency at Babaran Segaragunung Culture House; 2019 Bundanon Artist in Residence program through Bundanon Trust; 2018-19 Art of Threatened Species residency, a collaboration between Orana Arts Inc and the NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment; and 2017 residency at the Centre d'Art Marnay Art Centre (Camac), France. In seeking and valuing family cultural exchange activities she has taken the opportunity with these residencies to travel to France and Indonesia with her family in tow.
Her immersion in local communities is also evidenced by her rich involvement in running workshops such as her 2024 kids art workshops at Cowra Regional Art Gallery, 2023 Charcoal Workshop at The Uncooperative, at WAYOUT, a Cementa Initiative, as a Member and then Director of Tablelands Artist Cooperative Gallery, Bathurst from 2013 to 2017 and more recently commencing employment with Arts OutWest as a Projects Communications and Administration Officer.
Nic is interested in the possibilities of enticing new ways of thinking through connection and engagement with art. Her work is richly informed by her background in conservation and land management and influenced by her domestic life. After attaining a Science degree she worked in the conservation and land management field. In the middle of 2016 she resigned from her employment position in this sector to focus on her art practice and to commence studies in the painting workshop at the Australian National University. In this early part of her career she has been listed on the Dean's List for Academic Excellence for her 2019 Honours Year at the University of New South Wales Art & Design.
Nic has held a total of eight solo exhibitions, participated in three two person exhibitions and numerous group shows since her first solo exhibition, WILD in Cowra Regional Art Gallery in 2016. This exhibition kick started her art practice following winning the 2015 Central West Regional Art Award, through Cowra Regional Art Gallery. Nic's most recent solo exhibition, Happenings 2023 occurred at Michael Reid, Murrurundi. In 2022 Nic's solo exhibition, Nicola Mason: Cycle at Bathurst Regional Art Gallery co-occurred with Sidney Nolan: Drought, Robert Hirschmann: Past Night and Hui Selwood: Cubi and other passages.
In 2024 her work was awarded the Early Career Art Award at the Grace Cossington Smith Art Award and Winner of the Inaugural Interior Art Prize through Weswal Gallery, in 2023 her work was Commended in the Gulgong Une(art)hed, in 2021 her work was Runner-up in the painting section of Remagine 2021 Art Prize, and in 2020 her work was Highly Commended in the Adelaide Perry Prize for Drawing. Her works have additionally been selected as a finalists in numerous other national awards including being selected for both the S. H. Ervin Salon des refusés (alternate Archibald portrait and Wynne landscape) exhibition; the Calleen Art Award; Muswellbrook Art Prize; Collie Art Prize; Paddington Art Prize; Redland Art Award; Basil Sellers Art Prize; Nillumbik Prize for Contemporary Art, Lake Art Prize; Milburn Art Prize, John Villers Outback Art Prize, Hornsby Art Prize, Gosford Art Prize, Blacktown Art Prize, Georges River Art Prize, BAM Art Prize, Waverley Art Prize, Hurford Hardwood Portrait Prize, Jenny Birt Award; Macquarie Group Emerging Artist Prize; The Waterhouse Natural Science Art Award; Fleurieu Biennale; Footscray (Tertiary) Art Prize; and the Korea Australia Arts Foundation Art Award along with being a semi finalist in the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize and the Moran Contemporary Photographic Prize.
Her practice has been propelled by a number of residencies, bursaries and grants including her 2024 Squatters Residency, The Foundations, Portland, 2023 Ironbark Residency a collaboration between Stuart Town STA and Orana Arts Inc; 2020 Australian Consortium for In-Country Indonesian Studies (ACICIS) internship / residency at Babaran Segaragunung Culture House; 2019 Bundanon Artist in Residence program through Bundanon Trust; 2018-19 Art of Threatened Species residency, a collaboration between Orana Arts Inc and the NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment; and 2017 residency at the Centre d'Art Marnay Art Centre (Camac), France. In seeking and valuing family cultural exchange activities she has taken the opportunity with these residencies to travel to France and Indonesia with her family in tow.
Her immersion in local communities is also evidenced by her rich involvement in running workshops such as her 2024 kids art workshops at Cowra Regional Art Gallery, 2023 Charcoal Workshop at The Uncooperative, at WAYOUT, a Cementa Initiative, as a Member and then Director of Tablelands Artist Cooperative Gallery, Bathurst from 2013 to 2017 and more recently commencing employment with Arts OutWest as a Projects Communications and Administration Officer.
Nic is interested in the possibilities of enticing new ways of thinking through connection and engagement with art. Her work is richly informed by her background in conservation and land management and influenced by her domestic life. After attaining a Science degree she worked in the conservation and land management field. In the middle of 2016 she resigned from her employment position in this sector to focus on her art practice and to commence studies in the painting workshop at the Australian National University. In this early part of her career she has been listed on the Dean's List for Academic Excellence for her 2019 Honours Year at the University of New South Wales Art & Design.
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In the studio
Nic Mason lives and works near Bathurst in Wiradjuri country, regional Australia.
The studio she works in (when not in use by one of her teens) is a miners cottage rich in stories - many of which find their way back with oral histories from neighbours and visitors returning to their past. It is thought that this dwelling is a remnant from the gold mining days of the mid to late 19th Century. Around a century later this cottage and place became a retreat for the artist, activist and philosopher Margaret Grafton. To more recent times, where Gabrielle, once the teenager inhabiting the nineties in this place, returned to the cottage and revealed her experience of shared story making centred around the mysterious Marika Gusuna, tagged on the wall. Do tell if you have news on Marika. |
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Acknowledgement of Country
I acknowledge and pay my respects to the Wiradjuri elders past, present and emerging, who are the traditional owners of the land where I live and work.
I acknowledge and pay my respects to the Wiradjuri elders past, present and emerging, who are the traditional owners of the land where I live and work.