Watercolour 

Watercolour is considered to be the most demanding of paint mediums. It is both transparent and permanent, which means the artist cannot change or correct what they have laid upon the surface. In addition, there is no white pigment. All the whites and highlights come from leaving the paper untouched.

Generally people are familiar with wet on wet watercolour in which loose washes of misty colour suffuse the picture plane. Nicoletta's work however is done in the drybrush technique in which the pigment is mixed with just enough water to transfer it onto the paper. The technique was prized by early botanical illustrators because of the high degree of realism that it affords.

"I approach most of my watercolour work from a drawing rather than painterly approach. Just as a pencil fixes the position of each contour and tonality of a subject, so does my brush. The painting evolves from the process of asking what, where, how and why, and from recording each investigation."

"Within the conventions of realism, I investigate the physical and mental processes involved in the construction of the human perception of reality. It is not only the photographic realism of the subject that I explore, but the experiential nature of my interraction with it. As a result of this pursuit I have come to decribe my work as conceptual realism."