Nicolette Benjamin Black is a visual artist and educator

whose practice boldly bridges sculpture, textiles, painting, and drawing. Working exclusively with recycled and found materials—post-industrial waste, domestic remnants, forgotten fibers—she transforms what society discards into striking, delicate, and radical works of art.

“In Black’s art, the encounter is a brutal beauty.”
— Dr. Jennifer L. Biddle, NICA, UNSW

Nicolette holds a Bachelor of Visual Arts from the Australian National University (ANU), where she graduated in 2000, and a Graduate Diploma in Family History from the University of Tasmania. She has taught in numerous art institutions across Australia, including Belconnen Art Gallery and Goulburn Regional Gallery, and has served as a guest tutor in the papermaking department at ANU.

An Aesthetic of Memory, Matter, and Place

Her work explores memory, place, and the everyday, often from unexpected perspectives—sometimes even from the sky. Her sculptures echo familiar objects (chairs, baskets, handmade paper cups) but are transformed by meticulous, repetitive processes: crocheting, felting, weaving, collage… Each gesture bears the weight of feminine labor, precise and methodical, where repetition becomes a language of its own.

“Audacious and deeply human, her works touch the intimate and confront our relationship with consumption.”

Nicolette has exhibited nationally across Australia as well as internationally in New York and Bologna. Her artworks are held in both private and institutional collections, including the Australian National Archives. Since 2005, she has been a finalist in eight major national art prizes, including:

• Country Energy Art Prize for Landscape Painting (2005 & 2008)
• Fleurieu Peninsula Biennale – Food & Wine Section (2006)
• Off the Wall, Sydney (2009)
• Through the Looking Glass, Toyota Community Spirit Gallery (2010)

Art That Cuts Close to the Skin

Her creations provoke a double reaction: a desire to touch, and a quiet warning. An object may seem familiar—even comforting—but reveals its fragility or toxicity. A chair crafted from computer cables evokes the isolating effects of our plugged-in lives. A lacy vessel made from thistle down or Patterson’s Curse may crumble if filled with water.

“Her works reuse in order to refuse: refuse indifference, disposability, and the sterile utility of everyday objects.”

With each piece, Nicolette Black offers a powerful, feminine, and critical aesthetic. Her art invites us into an intimate, tactile, and unsettling encounter with what is at once deeply familiar and shockingly new.