Clay for the shape and straw for the tactile structure: Nicola Hicks forms works from these materials. The works are moving, involving us in a dialogue. Their tangible presence serves as a reminder that not only humans but also animals can communicate with us. When her children were born Nicola Hicks began to make human figures as well as other creatures. In the artist’s daily life children, family, and animals enter into a not always idyllic symbiosis. On a farm in North England sheep walk in and out of her studio, her hand sometimes stroking the coat of a horse or hide of a dog and at other times a piece of paper with charcoal.