About Nikki Quarry

Biography

Born in 1977, Nikki grew up in the leafy North Shore suburb of St. Ives in Sydney, Australia. 

As both a child and an adult Nikki has travelled extensively. At age 10, Nikki spent a year at The International School in Bali. This proved to be a defining time in her developing life as a painter. The vibrant colours, spirited dances of the Balinese people, as well as the cultural and artistic elements of this unique place, proved great inspiration for her emerging creative pathway. 

In 2008, Nikki completed a Diploma in Visual Communications at The National Art School in Sydney but realised there was more knowledge and inspiration to be gained by continuing her solo adventures abroad.

Nikki found a temporary home in Kamari on the small volcanic island of Santorini, Greece, where she worked as a masseuse on the beach by day and explored her artistic character by sometimes writing poetry and working as a caricaturist on the busy streets at night. This period in Greece spanned seven years and many of her paintings today assume mythical undertones and dreamlike imagery. Her worldly vision and rustic exposure to far off, remote lands bring life to her art. 

Along with her vivid imagination, Nikki references her large collection of personal photographs to reveal vast spaciousness in her canvases. Her work is often dominated by dramatic skies that can fill most of the picture and is suffused with both mystical and natural elements. The warm, welcoming open spaces in Nikki’s paintings draw the viewer in to discover the finer, mesmerizing detail of fanciful objects. Here is the where Nikki’s realistic landscapes cross over to an enticing make-believe world. 

More recently, having married and become a mother to three children, Nikki has settled in the idyllic suburb of Avalon Beach on the northern outskirts of Sydney. She now works as a full-time artist in her studio and on location. She has been focusing on both personal works and commissioned paintings and murals. Nikki mainly uses traditional methods of oil on canvas, but her work is varied in both technique and medium. Although Realism is her speciality, Nikki has been influenced by the surrealist painters Rene Magritte and Salvador Dali from a very young age and so she also enjoys the freedom of abstract expression and allowing the unconscious to express itself. 

Nikki presently plans to reside in her little piece of paradise and continue to create and design evocative works of visual beauty that she can exhibit locally. Nikki hopes her works can be enjoyed by all as we try harder than ever to connect with each other, Nature and our ever changing but utterly amazing world.