Nicola Frimpong was born in 1987 in Epsom, Surrey, England, into a family of Ghanaian descent. She pursued her studies at the University of Creative Arts, Farnham, and later at Wimbledon College of Art. Primarily using gouache, ink, and watercolour, Frimpong crafts pieces that are often grotesque, delving into themes of neurodiversity, gender, sexuality, hatred, and violence.
Artist Nicola Frimpong was born into a family of Ghanaian descent in Epsom, England, in 1987. She completed her BA at University College of Creative Arts, Farnham, in 2009, subsequently earning her postgraduate diploma in Fine Art from Wimbledon College of Art in 2011.
Working primarily on A4 paper, Frimpong employs gouache, ink, and watercolour, as well as other less conventional materials. Her art, characterised by sharp observations and incisive caricatures, offers intricate and multi-layered representations of her personal experiences with neurodiversity, gender, and race. She delves into the darker aspects of the human psyche, exploring themes of sexuality, hatred, and violence. Her often grotesque creations are reminiscent of the work of notable figures such as the savage chronicler of postwar Weimar Germany, Otto Dix; the outsider artist, Henry Darger; and the notorious philosopher, the Marquis de Sade. This diverse blend of inspirations is evident in her bold portrayals of sexual depravity and violent scenarios, which provide a witty critique of societal norms. In her 2012 work, The Accidental Birth of Nicola – I Should Have Been Born a Boy, Frimpong illustrates figures in hues of pink and brown involved in various sexual and self-harming acts. Another 2012 piece, Untitled (White Slaves), reverses the roles in the racial violence of the transatlantic slave trade, depicting naked white figures imprisoned in a metal cage, while Black onlookers assume roles such as auctioneer, merchant, spectator, and tormentor. Through her artwork, Frimpong boldly challenges established racial and gender conventions, emphasising her defiance against societal expectations.
Frimpong creates her art from the comfort of her home, and her auto-fictional paintings, intimate in size, evoke the feel of pages from a personal journal. The artist has declared, ‘My work is very intimate and precious to me, it’s like a mother and baby. I’m remarkably shy, but my work isn’t. It’s bold, in your face. My work is like my alter ego – I can hide behind it’ (Balans interview). Crafting her pieces exclusively from her dining table, she employs materials readily available in her kitchen, such as biro, bleach, Tippex, and brewed black tea. Her artworks often weave various narratives through both text and visuals, at times channeling 'Freakpong', her artistic alter ego. These self-referential creations present figures intertwined with handwritten sentiments of rage, tenderness, and humour. They display intricate and enigmatic patterns, shaped by the rich narratives of British colonial history, mainstream culture, and institutional standards. As Celeste-Marie Bernier observed in her book Stick to the Skin: African American and Black British Art, ‘From race to representation, gender, sexuality, identity, and class, nothing is off-limits across Nicola Frimpong's watercolors and digital works as she challenges conventional notions of sanity and insanity, norm and anomaly, self and other, proposing alternative mental and physical terrains’ (Bernier 2019).
Through her unique and deeply emotional lens, Frimpong brings a personal touch to cultural history, employing playful and provocative exaggeration and caricature to depict societal dynamics. Drawing from a wide range of inspirations, her work is influenced by contexts as varied as ancient Egypt, eighteenth-century pornography, and Baroque art. A myriad of influences, from gay erotica and slasher films to Georgian architecture, queer bars, courtrooms, sex clubs, Jacobean gallows, and bear fighting further inform her work. Her enigmatic watercolour Untitled (2013, private collection) features six male figures standing before the viewer, wearing eccentric clothing, embellished with provocative phrases concerning race and slavery. These figures appear to hail from various ethnicities, with their costumes ranging from formal wear to casual outfits. Some sport distinctive features such as blue hair or an eyepatch, and one even has a wooden leg and hook-like arms. The imagery is bewildering, and the innocent, almost childlike portrayal contrasts starkly with the artwork's underlying provocative message. Through Frimpong's surreal lens, viewers are ‘displaced into a futuristic world or imagined realm where the norms of power and representation have been thrown into carnivalesque chaos’ (Christie’s).
Frimpong was selected for the Bloomberg New Contemporaries at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), London and Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool (2012–13). In 2014 she took part in African Diaspora Artists in the 21st Century, curated by writer and academic Paul Goodwin in collaboration with King’s College London’s Department of International Development and the Institute of International Visual Arts (Iniva). In 2017, she was featured in Isolation Chamber Vacation at the Transition Gallery, London and Worthing Museum & Art Gallery, scrutinising diverse cultural portrayals of aloneness as expressed through art. Frimpong held her first solo exhibition at Cell Project Space, London in 2022, followed by the online show The Uncensored Frimpong Show! at Richard Saltoun Gallery (2023). Nicola Frimpong lives and works in Surrey, England. Her work is not currently represented in UK public collections.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Nicola Frimpong]
Publications related to [Nicola Frimpong] in the Ben Uri Library