Nicola McCoy’s Black Hat paintings

Local artist and Facilitator of the National Gallery’s
Outreach Programme, Nicola McCoy with one of her
paintings from the ‘Black Hat’ series.

Nicola, with the paintings from her ‘Black Hat’ series.

By Christopher Tobutt

Friday, June 24, 2005

Nicola McCoy is presently employed as the Education and Outreach Facilitator for the National Gallery’s Outreach programme, taking art into the community but Ms McCoy herself has been painting “seriously” for the last 15 years.

During that time, she has developed from figurative work, “mainly landscapes,’ to increasingly abstract work.

After a time described by Ms McCoy as “a dry spell with my work,” inspiration came along, in the form of a black hat.

“I met a cowboy. He had a black Stetson hat, and I fell in love with him. I started doing lots of sketches of him and the black hat in an abstract way. For some reason I got focused on the hat.

“All these new paintings have a black hat hidden somewhere inside them,” Ms McCoy said.

After deciding she wanted to go to art school in England, and spurred on by her need to find money for tuition fees, Ms McCoy decided to sell her paintings. The response from buyers has been tremendous, and Ms McCoy has been selling the new paintings faster than she can paint them.
“I sold one to my former art teacher at John Gray High School,” Ms McCoy said.

Dr Elizabeth McLaughlin and Dr Howard Deosaran have both fallen in love with the paintings, and purchased 15 of the ‘Black Hat’ series. In addition, they have commissioned her to paint another four that will be put up in their George Town home.

“I love the colours; the abstractness of the whole series,” Dr Deosaran said. “They really come alive when you look at them.”

“I think they’re playful,” Dr Howard added.

Ms McCoy usually works in acrylics on canvas. “Instead of priming the canvas, I use thin washes of colour, usually blue,” Ms McCoy said.

I might start off with Cerulean, then Cobalt or basic blue. I build blocks of colour. Then the forms finally emerge really when I put the other colours in.”

Ms McCoy’s paintings are exciting because of her use of the full colour spectrum, yet the paintings always retain a sense of balance in form, colour and light, so that the eye is drawn equally to all sections of the canvas.

Ms McCoy’s paintings are varied. Some are predominantly blue, looking like the sky in late evening with splatters of white for stars; other paintings are wilder and more abstract. The forms in the painting play on the eye as they seem to dance and play with one another.

However varied Ms McCoy’s paintings are from one another, they all share one thing in common. They all have a black hat.

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