Grace Nickel facts for kids

Grace Nickel RCA (born 1956) is a talented Canadian artist who creates amazing things with clay! She is known for her beautiful ceramic art and also teaches art to students at university.

Grace Nickel's Early Life and Education

Grace Nickel was born in 1956 in Altona, Manitoba, Canada. She loved art and went to the University of Manitoba to study ceramics, earning her first degree in 1980. Later, she continued her studies and received a Master's degree from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in 2008. In 1999, Grace was invited all the way to Perth, Australia. There, she showed how she works with a special material called paper clay and shared information about other ceramic artists from Manitoba.

Grace Nickel's Artistic Career

In 1991, Grace Nickel found a new way to create art when she discovered paper clay at the Banff Centre. Paper clay is a special type of clay that has paper fibers mixed into it, making it lighter and stronger. Since then, she has used this material to make many unique sculptures.

Grace has created several large art pieces for buildings. These include the Meditation Window at the St. Norbert Arts Centre in Manitoba and Sanctuary for an art event in Minneapolis, USA, in 1995. She has also made special art for specific places, like beautiful tile designs and artistic lights for public and private buildings. In 1999, she made a set of three large tile artworks to celebrate the Pan Am Games. This artwork was later shown at Winnipeg City Hall. She also created a special piece for the entrance of the Beechwood National Cemetery in Ottawa, Ontario.

Besides creating her own art, Grace Nickel teaches ceramics full-time. She shares her knowledge and skills with students at the School of Art at the University of Manitoba.

Grace Nickel's Art Exhibitions

Grace Nickel's artwork has been shown in many places around the world! Her pieces have been displayed in the United States, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Taiwan, and Korea. Some of her notable exhibitions include:

• Unity and Diversity at the Cheongju International Craft Biennale in Korea.
• Northern Lights/Southern Exposure in Perth, Australia.
• Inaugural Exhibition at The Canadian Ceramic Museum in Fuping, China, in 2007.
• Earth Matters at the NCECA Invitational Exhibition in Philadelphia in 2010.

She has also had many solo exhibitions in Canada, where her art was the main focus:

• A Quiet Passage at the Winnipeg Art Gallery in 2002.
• Devastatus Rememorari in Halifax, Nova Scotia (2008) and Altona, Manitoba (2009).
• Arbor Vitae at the Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery in Waterloo, ON (2015), and other locations including Winnipeg, MB (2016), Portland, OR (2017), and Moose Jaw (2018).
• Eruptions at the Art Gallery of Burlington in 2019 and the Gallery 1C03 at the University of Winnipeg in 2022.
• Inter Artes et Naturam (Between Art and Nature) at the Winnipeg Art Gallery in 2023.

Grace Nickel's Art Collections

Grace Nickel's art is so special that it has been added to many important art collections. In Canada, her work can be found in:

• The Claridge Collection in Montreal.
• The Winnipeg Art Gallery.
• The Government of Manitoba art collection.
• The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia.

Her art has also been collected by museums in other countries, including:

• The National Museum of History in Taipei, Taiwan.
• The Museum of Modern Ceramic Art in Gifu, Japan.
• The Taipei County Yingge Ceramic Museum in Taiwan.

Awards and Recognition

Grace Nickel has received several awards for her amazing work:

• She won a Bronze Award at the 2nd International Ceramics Competition in Mino, Japan, in 1989.
• She received a Judge's Special Award at the Sixth Taiwan Golden Ceramics Awards in Taipei, Taiwan.
• In 2007, she became a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, which is a great honour for Canadian artists.
• In 2023, she was given the prestigious Saidye Bronfman Award, one of Canada's highest awards for fine craft artists.

See also

List of Canadian artists