It all started when…

I won a Sesame Street newsprint sketch pad for a drawing I made in Grade One. I have loved art ever since.

I grew up listening to stories about my great-grandmother who pursued art in Ireland before she emigrated to Canada in the early 1900’s. As a teenager, I admired my uncle’s ink drawings of Saskatoon’s historical buildings and his watercolours of forest floors. As a young adult I spent hours studying an original Ernest Lindner painting my grandmother prominently displayed on her living room wall. At Grade Twelve graduation I won the subject award for art and in the fall I entered the Fine Arts program at the University of Saskatchewan, although I actually ended up with a degree in Sociology. For awhile in my early twenties I made porcelain dolls as a creative outlet and later I began taking an occasional figure drawing class which inspired me to pursue painting and eventually to attend workshops at the Emma Lake Kenderdine Campus.

All of these experiences simmered in the background of my busy life until it became undeniable that making art was an integral part of me. However, when I had my two sons, staying at home and giving them all of my energy became my priority.

In August 2009, I began my blog, "Nicki Ault: Me, Myself and Who Am I?", as a way to motivate myself to paint and post small paintings, which was usually all I could manage with two little ones at my feet. It was also a way to connect with an art community online. In November 2009 I had my first solo exhibition in a gallery setting at St. Thomas More which show-cased two years worth of acrylics paintings. In December 2009, an opportunity came my way that I couldn’t pass up. I joined the well-established St. George Ave. Artists' Group and set up my first studio space. Eventually I began to spend more and more time there. In late 2013 the building was sold and we had to move. Three months later, eleven women artists established the Studio On 20th where I painted until June 2021 at which time I went solo. My new studio is truly my home away from home. I love my job and I am thrilled that making art is finally what I get to do full-time.

I find that every year brings new and exciting opportunities. In March 2011 I created a mixed media piece, “In My Aura”, which was accepted into a show in Ayr, Ontario featuring 100 paintings by 100 female artists from around the world in celebration of the centenary of International Women’s Day. Although I consider myself to be a landscape painter, that particular piece featured a self portrait surrounded by floating images of women from my family history dating back to my great-great-great grandmother. From 2011-2015 I was a committee member of Art Trek: Studio Discovery Tour, an event that aimed to introduce the public to the working studios and art practices of artists in Saskatoon. In 2016 I became a juried member of the Saskatchewan Craft Council. In both 2016 and 2018 I won awards for paintings I submitted to the Mann Art Gallery Winter Festival Show and Sale. In the fall of 2018 I stepped out of my comfort zone and presented an Artist Talk at Art Now Saskatchewan Fine Art Fair and in spring 2019 a feature was written on my art in Galleries West magazine.

I have a genuine and intense love for the natural world, specifically the Boreal forest, northern lakes, big prairie skies and wild grasslands of Saskatchewan. I am (happily) on a never-ending quest to learn and grow, discover and explore all things related to my preferred medium, oil paint. I am currently passionate about capturing light as it changes throughout the days, months and seasons and I strive to paint the emotions I feel when I experience our varied landscape. I am largely self-taught through reading and practicing, but must attribute a good portion of my growth in the last few years to the courses I attended at Atelier 2302 in Saskatoon.

I strongly believe it is important for my teenage boys to witness me in this "better-late-than-never" pursuit. I hope that by doing so they will learn valuable life lessons in perseverance, setting goals, working hard, facing fears and never giving up. Most importantly, I hope they will be inspired to chase their own dreams.

Thank you for taking the time to look at my website. Please reach out if you have any questions,

~Nicki