Originally from London, Nicola Mountney worked for a major London costumiers, specialising in period costume for film and television from the 1600’s to the early 1960’s. Here she created and mounted many costume exhibitions in museums and historic houses throughout Europe and the USA, before moving to Tuscany in 2006 where she ran a Buddhist retreat centre in the Apennine mountains not far from Florence.

Nicola spent 10 years studying and instructing Tibetan Buddhist Thangka (scroll) painting, where there is a strong emphasis on precision, colour and detail. In the course of her training she became interested in the often highly complex landscapes in ancient Thangka paintings. Nicola takes tiny fragments of these landscapes and uses them as a base to create a unique style.  Her work is abound with mountains, streams and foliage where viewers are transported to her imaginary landscapes. She has since moved away from Thangka painting, but this background along with travels to Asia have led her in the direction of building bridges between traditional and contemporary art and in doing so creating a fusion of East and West. Nicola also occasionally paints botanicals, still adhering to her background training with its’ emphasis on detail.

Nicola exhibits in England and Italy. She has collectors in Europe, Asia and USA

“When I paint, I’m not striving to present something that I have seen, rather, what I have thought. My paintings are not an open window for the viewer’s eye, but the viewer’s mind, by allowing them to travel in their imagination.”