Prolific painter’s 30 years of making art

A painter celebrated 30 years as a professional artist with an open day at her studio.

Nikki McKay, of Swallow Farm, Farndon, started painting and drawing as a four-year-old, and has produced hundreds of pieces of work during her career.

“My father was a Cornish painter and my mother was a dancer, so I was made for a career with the arts,” said Nikki.

“My father wanted to paint all around the country so we travelled a lot when I was young. I went to 17 different schools when I was growing up.”

Nikki trained in art and design at Derby College of Art, Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, and Nottingham Trent University, and her work extends to making animation films, teaching, and lecturing.

In 1992 she won the East Midlands Arts Animation Award and she received development funding from the British Film Institute to work on new digital animation techniques.

She said: “I use dance as an inspiration for a lot of my paintings, and I try to paint quite cheerful pictures because I want to put people in a good mood when they look at them.

“I paint a minimum of two hours every day, and I normally do around two paintings per week, so I’ve lost count of the number I’ve produced.”

She has had a successful link with Café Bleu, Newark, which exhibits up to 60 of her paintings at a time, attracting attention from both locals and diners from further afield.

“I have sold my work to people from all over the world, and some of the customers have seen my paintings in the café,” she said.

“A lady saw my pictures and invited me to exhibit some work in the Montecatini Gallery, between Florence and Pisa, in Italy in 2006, and every bit of work I took there was sold.

“It’s such a shame more artists aren’t asked to put up paintings in business environments, where they are available to a variety of people and groups.

“It’s a great way to decorate the business and showcase the artist.”