About the Program

In 2009, Nicola McClelland was invited by architect Greg Burgess to be the Artist-in-Residence at Carey. The role required her to facilitate and coordinate the making of student art and its subsequent installation in the De Young Performing Arts Centre. The role spanned the breadth of the Junior, Middle and Senior Schools. Nicola liaised with the architect, art teachers and students and constantly considered the site under construction. The creation of the artwork, its curation and installation ran parallel with the building’s construction, culminating in the completion of both projects just prior to the opening of the Centre.

About the Artist

Nicola McClelland studied Fine Art at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London, and later completed a Masters of Fine Arts at the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne.

She has shown in various solo and group exhibitions in England and Australia. Nicola’s work is represented in the La Trobe University Art Collection. It is also held in various corporate and private collections in England, the United Arab Emirates, Italy, New Zealand and Australia.

She began as a printmaker and broadened her practice to incorporate sculpture, installation and mixed-media work. She selects and alters materials through cutting, collage and sculptural processes. Her choice and transformation of these materials and images is a response to, and reflection on, themes and states of transience, movement and change.

Prior to attending Central Saint Martins in London, Nicola studied Anthropology, Human Geography and Art History at the Australian National University. These subjects informed her experiences when she lived away from Australia in countries such as Niger, West Africa and India. Her own and her family’s history of migration and her work teaching refugee and migrant communities have greatly influenced her practice.