Nicola Bouwer, Whispering Woods: A Solitary Wanderer's Tale, oil on board, 2023

Dimesnsion: 42x29.5cm

Nicola Bouwer is a Johannesburg-based South African artist working across oil painting and collage. Her practice is rooted in quiet observation and emotional storytelling, exploring themes of memory, stillness, nature, and the subtle spaces in between.

Guided by instinct and informed by her formal studies in the social sciences, Bouwer sees creativity not as a skill to be acquired, but as a way of moving through the world. After beginning her career in the corporate sector, she returned to her long-standing passion for artmaking, establishing a dedicated practice that merges sensitivity, atmosphere, and form.

Often drawn to simple, evocative elements—a lone chair, a passing shadow, the delicate shift of light—Bouwer’s work is influenced by Japanese aesthetics, photography, graphic design, architecture, and the natural world. Her compositions blend introspection with playful nuance, creating layered narratives in paint and paper.

Whispering Woods: A Solitary Wanderer’s Tale captures this sensibility, evoking the quiet poetry of isolation and the deep connection between self and landscape.