Artist Nicola Turner on horsehair, sheep's wool and her solo show at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

Material Matters with Grant Gibson

Artist Nicola Turner discusses her transition from a successful career in theatre design to fine art, focusing on her large-scale sculptures

Key takeaways

Nicola Turner uses 'dead matter' like horsehair and sheep's wool to explore themes of life and death.
Her studio, Form ICA in Bath, is a collective space for seven artists located in a converted industrial laundry.
The sculpture 'Time Scythe' at Yorkshire Sculpture Park was inspired by a Shakespearean sonnet and local sheep.
Turner's background in theatre design provides the structural expertise needed for large-scale installations.
She finds the process of stitching and dissecting materials to be both therapeutic and cathartic.

Main topics

Horsehair and wool sculpture
Transition from theatre design to fine art
Site-responsive installations

Notable quotes

I classify it as dead matter, but dead in apostrophes, because I think although the material's been cut off from where it was living on an animal, it continues to have vitality.

Conclusion

An insightful exploration of how organic materials and historical narr

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:08) Hello and welcome to a new episode of Material Matters with Grant Gibson in association with our thought leadership partner, Berghaus. This is a podcast where I talk to a designer, maker, artist or architect about a material or technique with which they're intrinsically linked and discover how it changed their life and career. Think of it as a bit like Desert Island Discs but with materials instead of music. Today I'm delighted to welcome my guest Nicola Turner. Nicola is a UK-based artist who is perhaps best known for her use of horsehair and wool in her extraordinary, and often quite dark, sculptures. She originally trained as a theatre designer, working for the likes of the National Theatre and the Sydney Opera House, before doing a fine art MA in her 50s. Since then, her work has featured in a string of locations, most notably the Courtyard at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 2024. She currently has an installation at the Chapel of the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. as well as an upcoming exhibition at Anley Jeddah Fine Art in London's Hanover Square. Nicola, thanks so much for doing this. How are you? Speaker 1 (1:08) Pleasure. Lovely to be here. Speaker 2 (1:09) Before we get going, it's your birthday today. Speaker 1 (1:11) Yes, it is. Speaker 2 (1:13) Did you do anything exciting other than talk to me, I wonder? Speaker 1 (1:17) No, I celebrated with my family yesterday. So today's a normal Monday. Speaker 2 (1:21) Okay. Okay. Very good. So there is a tradition on Material Matters that I ask each guest to describe their... studio workshop it's something that dates back oh seven years when I used to go and talk to people in their their place of work I'm looking you uh I'm looking at you on a screen currently so where are you now so Speaker 1 (1:43) I'm in my studio in Bath so I um about three three years ago I turned this industrial unit into seven artist studio spaces and a communal space. So I have my studio here and then six other artists also work from here. And it was very hard for me to find a studio within my city that was big enough to do the kind of work I wanted to explore. So it was quite a long hunt. So in the end, I came across this industrial unit. It had a falling in asbestos roof and ivy growing up it and no water or anything. It took Speaker 2 (2:23) a few Speaker 1 (2:24) months to kind of, you know, bash it apart. And, you know, I collected sinks on Facebook Marketplace or Freecycle. And then we've established a studio here. So it's called Form ICA. Speaker 2 (2:36) This is a collective, right? How does that operate? Speaker 1 (2:40) Yeah, so I run the studio spaces. Speaker 1 (2:44) There are six other artists as part of it. And we host, we're also in a yard with other businesses. So there are some artists next door. There's also Perfect Space Carpentry and Paint Strippers. We've got Hearth Chocolate. And so we do host yard parties as well, where we all open up our spaces and have, you know, food and drink kind of outside. And also... Something that runs from here is Bath Art Depot, which I've been part of for quite a few years. And that's how I was really aware that there was a real lack of studio spaces in the city. So Bath Art Depot is a CIC and we host talks and events trying to highlight the need for more contemporary art spaces in Bath and studio spaces. Speaker 2 (3:34) Because I'm right in thinking your building was an old laundry, right? Speaker 1 (3:38) It was. Initially, it was an old laundry. And then more recently, it made kitchen countertops. So in fact, when we were pulling down the ceilings, it was filled with formica that they'd obviously put up to protect the leaks or divert the leaks into buckets and things. Hence the name Form ICA. I mean, form's quite a sculptural term, I thought, and ICA, Independent Collective of Artists. Speaker 2 (4:05) It all makes sense. Speaker 1 (4:06) Works so well. And I thought it was important not to give it a name relating to the street or the area. Just, I think a more abstract name, you know, makes you think kind of bigger, more internationally as it were. Speaker 2 (4:20) And you might move one day, obviously. So can you describe, I mean, your studio, is it full of wool and horsehair? Can you describe, can you give the listeners a sense of how you work? Speaker 1 (4:33) Yeah, it comes in waves really. After there's been a shearing, I might then collect lots of wool. I was becoming completely surrounded by horsehair and wool. And so I do have containers now out the back of the studio where I store lots of material and also when things are on site. So at the moment, I have 1.2 tonne of wool at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. beginning to question exactly what I do when that all comes back to the studio. Speaker 2 (5:04) Come November, because they've just extended their show, right? Yeah, they Speaker 1 (5:07) have. So it's now until November the 1st. And my solo show is also running till November the 7th. So I'm going to have suddenly everything coming back at once. And recently I was given 19 horsehair mattresses by Raby Castle. So they all arrived the other day. So I have them piled up in the corner of my studio. So it does come in waves. I mean, I do have to obviously clear spaces to work. For the next two weeks, I'm processing my tendrils from the container and piling them up near the, I have a big roller shutter at the front. So the vans to take things to London will be coming on the 21st of September. So I will move stuff from the container, kind of check it, restitch any broken bits and then pile it up by the door. ready for collection. So I explained to the other studio holders that, you know, sometimes we have lots of space and sometimes I have to take over the communal space a bit with material if I'm, you know, waiting for a collection or something's being dropped off. Speaker 2 (6:08) I mean, it sounds like you have to be quite organised. Are you a tidy worker? Speaker 1 (6:14) Yeah, I'm a Virgo. So I love putting things in boxes and shelves. But I think I go through a process of of making a mess and then tidying up. I can't think very straight if I have something in complete chaos. So I try to, I have trolleys where I have my tools and I can wheel them around. Everything basically is on wheels so that I can wheel it around and create more space if I need more space and things. And I have an undercroft, which is where you're seeing me sitting in now with my door out into the studio space beyond. And in the Undercroft, it's a lockable space. I keep all my tools and yeah, things like that in the Undercroft. So yeah, so it's a space that changes depending on what project I'm working on. And you know what? Speaker 1 (7:09) what stage of the process I'm at as well. Speaker 2 (7:12) At the moment, you can catch our installation in the chapel, the Orchard Sculpture Park, which I saw back in April. It's now been extended. It was due to close about the end of September, I think. They've extended it to November. It's largely made of sheep's wool rather than horsehair, I guess in tribute to the sheep that are grazing on the field outside. I mean, the sculpture has this... Well, it's a sculpture. It's an extraordinary object, really. It has this kind of alien quality to it. It starts outside the chapel and oozes a little menacingly, I might suggest, into the building itself. Its tendrils are finished with shears as they touch the floor. There's a bit of Edward Scissorhands going on there, I guess, as well as a reference to the sheep. It's entitled Time Scythe. which comes from a Shakespearean sonnet. But why that name, Nicola? Speaker 1 (8:08) I mean, it's always very hard to think of a title, but I really liked that name with its reference both to farming, so the scythe reference and the cutting reference, and also to the... connection to the kind of cycle of life, I guess I explore. So the chapel is named after St. Bartholomew, who was the flayed saint. So he's the patron saint of leather workers and butchers and all things cutting. Speaker 2 (8:40) And farming. Am I right in saying and farming? Speaker 1 (8:43) Yeah. I mean, there's a whole long list of people he was patron saint of. And the shears, in fact, I collected old shears. I was already using vintage sheep shears in my work. And a lot of them have made in Sheffield, stamped on them, which I was very interested then in the link of that being so local. Obviously, in anybody that's been to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, you would have come across the sheep grazing the grounds. And so I also felt it very important to try and source local wool. I managed to get... a bit of the wool from the actual sheep that graze the grounds. And then I also went to a local British wool depot and there I sourced some more local wool. So I use local wool. And for me, I guess the link with the wool, the shears, the feeling of cutting through the space and reaching to the altar. So where the altar was initially. It's now just a platform, but it's where the sun comes through first thing in the morning. So the sun falls through that window and then gradually works around. And I just had, I guess when I'm invited to do a site response, it's an installation somewhere, I go and spend time in the space. And for me... The kind of feeling I wanted to follow was kind of reaching or kind of clawing to the altar space and cutting through right from the front. So when you walk, open the gate into the chapel grounds, you already see the sculpture weaving up the outside and then climbing through the bell tower, which was very exciting going up into the bell tower. And in fact... I don't think normally the bell tower is open for people to see up. So you can actually see right the way up into the bell tower and it drops down. And then, as you said, pulls over the balcony and then reaches almost clawing to the altar. And then there's a gap and I have a little piece kind of wiggling out the altar window. And I also, it was my largest pale work to date because I felt it was important to actually use referencing the sheep that actually grazed around the pastures so that actually you almost have to walk through the sheep to get to the chapel as well. There is a tiny bit of horse hair in there or hog hair. So when I source old mattresses, you never know what's going to be inside them. But occasionally I get a paler hair in the mattress. So whether it's a pale horse or sometimes I think they used hog hair in mattresses as well. So there's a bit of that in there. And for me, it's interesting. I guess, with the material, the different textures. So you can see horsehair is slightly scratchier and wool is very soft. And in fact, for this one, I was also donated a lot of processed wool. So stuff that's already been through a carding machine. And I was donated it actually before this opportunity arose. So it was great to actually know that I had quite a large stash already waiting for this to happen. Speaker 2 (11:57) It didn't start with the sonnet. It started with the location and the sheep. And you found the sonnet or you stumbled into the sonnet. How did Shakespeare arrive in the equation? Speaker 1 (12:07) Obviously, I have very strong links with Shakespeare through my history as a theatre designer. So I'm an associate artist of the Royal Shakespeare Company, and I've designed many productions for them in my past career. And I never think of a title before I make a work. So then... you've created a work and then it's like, what's the title? So I think for this, in fact, I had 30 titles written on a bit of paper and then I just went kind of crossing them off and trying to find references. And for me, this one, I mean, Time Scythe, the sonnet talks about, I mean, I can't quote it to you off by heart and I don't have it written down beside me here, but It talks about the life cycle. And for me, I'm interested in the materials I work with. I classify it as dead matter, but dead in apostrophes, because I think although the material's been cut off from where it was living on an animal, it continues to have vitality. It continues to change and it can be bleached in the sun. It still is alive to me. And I'm also interested in with the whole visual image of cutting and all these references we might say, like you cut your apron strings or you cut the umbilical cord or, you know, what actually can we cut away from what we've inherited from the past? how we actually do pass things through different generations. And for me, the sonnet conjured up that amazing, the amazing cycle of life, death, rebirth, life, death, rebirth. He's talking about the seasons, but for me, that seemed a really strong link also to what I explore in my practice. Speaker 2 (14:01) Yeah, I mean, they can be curious. Speaker 2 (14:05) deathly quality to your pieces. The word abject came up quite often when I researched your work. And as you said, you described your materials