Nicole Manning - Instagram Takeover

#ArtistTakeover | Nicole Manning | Day 1

Hello! My name is Nicole Manning and I have been the artist in residence at Draíocht for the month of August as a result of the Fingal | Draíocht Studio Award 2025. After graduating from NCAD in 2024, I spent a year at the Clancy Quay Studios before coming to Draíocht with the intention of further developing the direction my practice has taken over the past year. 

My work is inspired by the mind-body connection and the interplay between the physical and psychological. My paintings explore the visual expression of inner turmoil, with a particular focus on chronic stomach pain, all of the strange and challenging intricacies that come with the crossovers of physical and mental pain.

This opportunity has been the first time I’ve had a studio completely to myself, which is something I’ve dreamt of for a long time. It has been such an incredible privilege to be able to feel protected by the walls of the space in which you work, to be able to cry, dance, hum, or (especially) to have the privacy to lie down when (often) feeling unwell. 

On my very first day of moving into the space, truthfully, I felt the most ill I had been in weeks and weeks. I felt as wonky as the front left wheel of the trolley I was using to bring my stuff from my car into the studio (a wise idea recommended by Emer, I just unfortunately chose a bad trolley). Thankfully this feeling faded the more comfortable I got within the space, even if part of that beginning process was just sitting and staring at the white brick walls. I was nervous to settle in, as I’ve often struggled with adjusting to new environments, but I quickly felt completely at ease due to the kindness and welcoming air of the team at Draíocht.

It felt important for me, when I first arrived, to experiment with something new, to sort of mark the beginning of something new within the course of my practice. I began to test a bunch of paint pigments that I had brought back from a trip to Venice in November with my mum, and had been precious about keeping them for something special. This felt like a nice time to use them.

I felt uneasy with all my emotions swirling around, and as I was plucking up the courage to begin painting, I instead began writing. This then (as it always naturally does) bled into the visual elements of the work. I hadn’t written poetry in what felt like a really long time, so it was nice to remember the importance it still holds within my process.

I was looking a lot at Swedish artist Mamma Andersson, how she incorporates the relationship between the indoor and outdoor world, and how it collapses in on itself. Considering a lot of the reference images I had taken in preparation for this new series were indoors - which isn’t something I usually work with, I like working from more natural/outdoor references - I needed some inspiration for how to merge the two. I loved her use of colours, the birch trees and, strangely, the sense of courage I somehow picked up from the black & white snapshots of Andersson in her studio throughout the book. 

The ‘playfulness’ of the paint pigments made me feel quite childlike, like making potions. It made me look forward to my next venture; creating pigments from the earth. The mix of experimentation along with the written work led me to sketch an imaginative piece for the larger scale pieces I had set myself up to do upon arriving at Draiocht, I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to make use of all the wonderful room and space I was now lucky to have. I felt excited to stand and paint on canvases taller than me.

#ArtistTakeover | Nicole Manning | Day 2 

By coincidence, the pages within the Mamma Andersson book folded out into three pages, which made me think a lot about creating a triptych series. Three 120 x 80 cm canvases joined together at the hip for my new work. 

Within my practice I like to incorporate trees, for many reasons, including the fact that they remind me of the intestines. Whenever my stomach is sore, I imagine that there are tree branches twisting around and growing through and from all different parts of my body. 

I draw a lot of inspiration from (of course) Frida Kahlo, who experienced chronic pain all her life, this time looking more closely at her work “Tree of Hope, Remain Strong, 1946”. I began to combine the recurring imagery I incorporate throughout my work, going back to looking at garden gates, and their visual similarity to bed frames. A place of rest, hope, intimacy and pain. 

#ArtistTakeover | Nicole Manning | Day 3 

Over the last few months, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the idea of playfulness, trying to soften the weight of painting and loosen my grip on it. 

The deer has been following me for a long time; the recurring image of antlers, the fragility of the animal itself, and the awkward and lingering feeling of being caught in headlights. I wanted to embody that sense more physically; to let it seep into the reference photographs I use for my paintings, rather than relying on images of deer pulled from the internet.

I’ve always been really inspired by the freedom and childlike experimentation within some of my pals’ processes, particularly Eileen (@eileenleonardsealy) and Molly (@mouldyhandbags) so, I decided to build a deer head. 

Out of paper mâché. 

Big enough to wear on my own head. 

As well as an antler-hat. 

The process was long, and very very infuriating. Flour-paste everywhere, balloons popping repetitively around my poor studio mates that I shared space with in the Clancy Quay Studio, antlers threatening to collapse under their own weight … but it felt important that it WAS slow. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about process recently, and how easy it can be to skip steps. Painters using AI images as references; it’s quick, convenient, but it bypasses the days, weeks, months or years of world-building that often carry so much meaning. 

I wanted the opposite. 

Something tactile, frustrating, not very good. 

Something that reminded me what it means to actually make.

It wasn’t the first time that I’d made a kind of ‘stage set’ to work from. In my painting ‘tender is the night’, amongst these slides of images, I staged a scene with my fabulous partner in the woods behind his home in Carlow. We dragged out a foldable table, covered it with food, flowers, symbols of softness and pain, and decorated the trees with candles. Chairs were placed like actors waiting their turn to speak. I carried that feeling with me when I began this deer. I wanted to create something equally thoughtful, equally absurd.

Building the deer from scratch and stepping away from my beloved canvas, ultimately just made me more relieved to return to it. But it also widened the circle of my practice, it reminded me that the things we make to support painting; props, sets, costumes etc. are not lesser. 

They carry their own meaning. 

They are the scaffolding that lets the painting speak a bit louder …

(… now the deer head sort of follows me everywhere and I’m too scared to put it in the attic in case it’s bad juju … ) 

#ArtistTakeover | Nicole Manning | Day 4 | Studio Insights 
 

My time at draíocht has been spent focusing on the beginning steps of my new triptych piece. when painting large-scale i like to work with a collage of symbols and imagery: an artifice that has fascinated me due to it being a way to express a narrative; a small wink to, or traces of, previous works, and future works.

In the coming months, i intend to continue to create larger scaled work and, furthermore, focus on enlarging the narrative; by exploring chronic pain from a more specifically gendered lens. investigating the gender gap in chronic health conditions, medical misdiagnosis, incorrectly prescribed diets, and the physical burdens of marginalized resilience.

Thank you to the wonderful team at Draíocht & to Fingal Arts Office for this incredible opportunity, and for the wonderful time that I’ve had here over the last month, it has opened so many new doors for me and has left a sparkle in my eye and a warmth in my heart for the next coming chapter.