Hi there,
I’m Nicola Coxon, a Mother, Wife and Physiotherapist—but that’s not why you are here.
Perhaps my digital art has caught your attention?
My artwork is unique, it provokes curiosity and thought. Maybe it makes you feel calm or captivated as the liquid moves through forms…blending, opposing, swirling and shattering.
I would love to share my story with you.
My Story
My journey into video art began at the end of my Fine Art degree in 2005. I was exploring the age-old medium of paint and their interactions with ink and solvents in their fluid state – and in an instant I felt as though I had “stumbled” upon something truly unique.
As I watched these unbelievable images moving, flowing and changing right before my eyes, in real time, I knew I had to capture these ephemeral moments in video format.
I started pouring paint onto cellophane using an old HD video camera to capture this moment filming at perpendicular angles. I then progressed to using petri dishes and syringes for a more controlled and precise application. At my final graduate show I projected the videos onto walls and made DVDs to play on TV’s.
Simultaneously I felt like a fraud. I have the audio to prove it! I felt as though it was an accident, a stroke of luck, that this isn’t art but a mere fluke. This feeling as though I was an imposter lingered and filtered into many other aspects of my world. Hence my name - The Imposters Studio.
At the end of 2006 my whole world changed. I was nearing the end of my Graduate Diploma in teaching when my older sister, Kate, suicided.
I felt like I was underwater and everything around me was in slow motion. She had suffered for a long time with mental health problems and substance abuse. From that point forward my whole trajectory shifted.
In 2008 I embarked on my second degree to become a Physiotherapist. I wanted to help people and “contribute” to society. I started work in 2012 at SCGH and every patient I saw I wanted to save and help. I truly love being a physiotherapist and a creative at the same time.
16 years later I find myself wholeheartedly reacquainted with this art practise. Technology and my equipment has come a very long way, although my techniques are still very much still the same as they always have been. I now film using a Sony A7 iii digital mirrorless camera in 4K with Macro lens. This allows me to take far more detail and at a much higher level of resolution. The footage is raw, no filters and in real time. These videos are paintings of its most pure, most abstract self.
My videos explores paint and the way that these chemicals and substances mimic nature on micro, macro and mega scales. These universal properties of liquids and their interactions/reactions to each other is of divine design.
I am mesmerised by our Australian landscapes and colours of the outback. Having previously only worked in black and white, this is uncharted and exciting new territory for me.
With an amazing husband, two kids and a whole new perspective, I finally realise that Art can be the ultimate healer. Not only for me but for my audience.
Nicola