Nicola Kngwarraye Butler

I am an Australian Aboriginal Contemporary Artist of Eastern Aranda, Kukatja (Luritja) and Afghan heritage (paternal), English, Scottish, German and Swedish (maternal), living and working on Country in South Australia. My practice moves between painting, experimental processes, sculpture and weaving, and is grounded in lived experience, story and relationship.

Working across multiple materials allows me to think through questions of belonging, memory, ancestry and care, with my hands, as much as with my mind. Surfaces are layered, scraped back and rebuilt; fibres are woven, knotted and wrapped. The work holds both the weight of history and the everyday realities of being a First Nations woman and artist in contemporary Australia.

Over time, my practice has taken many forms with each pheyse capturing my layered expression, all of these experiences now come together here at nicolabutler.com, as a single, evolving contemporary practice.

This site gathers that practice in one place. The Art page presents selected bodies of work across painting, sculpture and weaving across 3 decades. The Writing page holds my own publications alongside earlier journalism as South Australian Correspondent for the National Indigenous Times (NIT) and the National Indigenous Radio Service (NIRS). Together, these strands reflect an ongoing commitment to story, relationship and the responsibilities that come with cultural and familial inheritance.