Nicola Hensel and John Turier
Red Ox, Green Ox
11 October - 2 November 2025
OPENING/MEET THE ARTIST Saturday 11 October, 11am – 5pm ALL WELCOME
MEET THE ARTISTS Saturday 25 October 11am – 2pm and ARTIST TALK Saturday 25 October, 1pm
“We’ve lived beside each other for thirty three years, raising a family and making art. On the surface our styles seem different, but they are absolutely inseparable from the patterns and weave of our life together,” Nicola Hensel and John Turier
“The older I get, the more I seek ways to enter a state I know, that opens up in the space between tenderness and rapture. One of the reliable doorways for me, is in paying close attention to the natural world. The ‘green nation’ is a place of immeasurable generosity. We only breathe and grow because of its inhabitants and their relationship with the sun. And as I get more thin-skinned with age, I feel and see their shapes and patterns of growth as some fascinating and ineffable form of instruction.” Nicola Hensel
“My practice is a fractured thing, a mix of finding new directions to explore with each show, as well as refining the processes and material combinations that I pick up along the way. Ideas are found through observation, contemplation, drawing, writing, materials, form, colour, nature etc….. One of the continuing plot lines in my practice has been playing with ways of combining 2D and 3D form. This show is a two way split. Firstly, a gang of works that are playing around with the idea and form and colour of folded apparel. Clothing is an outer shell or skin that we use to hide and adorn ourselves. In its neat, folded unworn state, new clothing offers the possibility of renewal and a fresh start. There is also a series of collaborated 2D, 3D works with Nicola.” John Turier
Artist Biography
Nicola Hensel
Nicola Hensel is a Newcastle-based artist, born here in 1961. Her work is represented in private, regional and national collections.
Her practice is based on drawing from life in her garden, house and neighbourhood.
This will be her first exhibition at Straitjacket.
Q and A
How do you choose your subject matter?
Whatever catches my eye and heart simultaneously.
What techniques do you use?
I closely watch seasonal changes in my garden, home, neighbourhood and self, and record them in written and drawn journals. I draw from life, then further work the drawings with inks and paint, and from these build collages.
Who are your influences?
My influences come from outside the art world – writers, poets, oddballs, mystics and radically-minded scientists.
John Turier
“Abstractionist John Turier was born in Sydney in 1954. He graduated from the Hunter Institute of Higher Education, NSW, in 1968 with a Bachelor of Visual Arts, and then again from the University of Newcastle in 1989 with a Diploma in Painting. He completed a Master’s Degree in Fine Art at the University of Newcastle in 1990. He currently lives and works in Newcastle, NSW.
John Turier’s 30-year career is underpinned by 19 solo exhibitions since 1989. Additionally, Turier’s experience as a tradesman has contributed immensely to his ability to adapt illustrations into three-dimensional forms, a process which underpins his, more often than not, humorous sculpture.
Turier won the William Fletcher Trust Scholarship in 1990. He has also received numerous public sculpture commissions, including from Australian Geographic, Newcastle City Council, Eden Gardens, Sydney, PCYC Australia and Commonwealth Bank.
His work can be found in a number of corporate and public collections such as Artbank, Jackson Smith Solicitors, SANs Hospital in Wahroonga Sydney, Newcastle City Council and Newcastle Regional Gallery.
A dual-retrospective exhibition of John Turier and partner Nicola Hensel, Kalliope Calliope, was on display at Maitland Regional Art Gallery from 2019-2020.
King Street Gallery has represented John since 2002.” from King Street Gallery website
This is the first exhibition by John at Straitjacket.
Q and A
How do you choose your subject matter? It finds me.
What techniques do you use?
My practice is a lot like assemblage or collage. It is a process of adding and subtracting until me and the work can settle and come to a mutual agreement, where we both feel calm, and reach the point where there’s nothing more to say. I love cross-pollinating techniques, so it’s an ongoing process of learning new ones and adding them to the mix.
But my mainstays are construction, painting and bronze-casting.
Who are your influences?
Furry Lewis, Tom.E.Lewis, Tom Waits, Victor Hugo, Jean Tinguely, Richard Feynman.