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About Nikki Tait


 

Nikki Tait is a printmaker who was born in the UK but, after travelling widely, made a home in Ireland’s west Cork two decades ago. She now works between there and London, but it is west Cork which provides the inspiration for most of her pieces. She tries to use the layering capacity of print to reflect the depth of the local landscape, the melding of land and sea, and the area’s rich inhabitants. Cullenagh Prints is named after the townland where she is based – with “cullenagh” usually being taken to mean “place producing holly”, although it is also sometimes  translated as “steep slope”. Both are true.

Although Nikki employs a range of printmaking techniques, she has a particular fondness for working with wood – both woodcuts and wood engraving – and for the immediacy of stone lithography.  A one-time journalist, she also has a strong interest in artists’ books and in the interplay of words and images.

Nikki has studied at the Royal Drawing School and Heatherley’s School of Art in London, and is a member of both the Gainsborough House print studio in Suffolk and Cork Printmakers in Ireland. Her work has been exhibited at the Bankside Gallery in London, locally in Ireland, and in North America and Australia.

Mayflies
Etching with aquatint, 2014, 28cms x 40 cms