Artists statement

'My Booris' won the Tertiary Art Award in the Gumbri White Dove Exhibition at Bundoora Homestead in 2004. Booris is a Wiradjuri word meaning baby or child.

Artist Bio
Born in Healesville, Mandy Nicholson is a Wurundjeri-willam (Wurundjeri-baluk patriline) artist and Traditional Custodian of Melbourne and surrounds. Mandy also has connections to the Dja Dja wurrung and Ngurai illam wurrung language groups of the Central/Eastern Kulin Nation on her fathers side and German on her mothers.

Over the course of her artistic career, she has produced carvings, etchings, prints, airbrushed works, ceramic pieces (carved, painted and produced), murals, corporate logos, children's clothing and public art works. Today she specialises in acrylic paintings and digital works.

Wurundjeri are a carving culture and use many symmetrical lines and diamond motifs. Her style consists of these traditional motifs of south-eastern Australia, blended with her own contemporary interpretation. The stories behind her designs all revolve around nature, animals, stories of her people, personal experience and my family.

She gained a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Aboriginal Archaeology in 2011, worked for the Victorian Aboriginal Corporation for Languages for 6 years and is now PhD candidate studying how Aboriginal people connect to Country, off Country. She is also a cultural mentor to young Indigenous girls, through learning and teaching of culture, language, dance and ceremony, elements of which also guide her artworks.