Nicole Fearfield

Nicole Fearfield is a Brisbane-based abstract painter whose work is deeply informed by the sea and its profound impact on our emotional landscape. Through expressive mark-making and layered glazing, she creates immersive seascapes that explore the tension between energy and calm — capturing both the exhilaration and the restorative stillness of ocean environments.

Working intuitively with acrylic and oil, Fearfield builds luminous surfaces that glow with inner light. Her skilful colour mixing and transparent layering create depth, vibration, and movement, allowing each painting to unfold slowly before the viewer. The result is work that feels both expansive and intimate — sensory, atmospheric, and emotionally resonant.

Her paintings are not literal depictions of place but abstracted emotional responses to it. Waves become gestures; tides become rhythm; horizon becomes breath. Within this push and pull — tension and release — Fearfield invites viewers into a space of freedom, nurture, and wellbeing.

In works such as Peace Out 1 and Peace Out 2, the ocean becomes both subject and metaphor. These large-scale abstract compositions embody movement and magnetism while maintaining a sophisticated restraint — balancing dynamism with quiet clarity.

In 2023, Fearfield won the Revival Art & Design Emerging Art Prize and was commissioned to create 22 original works for Brisbane’s West Village luxury development. Her paintings have been exhibited at the Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane Affordable Art Fairs — selling out in Melbourne — and have appeared in Home Beautiful magazine. She was also jury-selected for publication in International Art Folio US (2022).

Nicole Fearfield works from her home studio in Brisbane.

Peace Out 1 and Peace Out 2 are currently on display at The Brisbane Gallery as part of ESCAPE, exploring the sea as both emotional refuge and source of renewal.