Nicholas Hales is a multidisciplinary artist working across painting, drawing, film, and video, with process at the core of his practice. His works often begin with intuitive, emotionally driven mark-making that forms an underpainting—layered gestures informed by transpersonal psychology, spirituality, neuroscience, and Eastern philosophy. These expressive foundations are held in tension with more resolved and structured elements such as hard lines, geometric forms, and controlled gradients, resulting in abstract compositions that operate as exercises in duality, where intuition and restraint, vulnerability and containment, coexist.

Nicholas Hales is a multidisciplinary artist working across painting, drawing, film, and video, with process central to his practice. His works often originate through intuitive, emotionally driven mark-making that forms an underpainting - layered gestures building an atmospheric space shaped by transpersonal psychology, spirituality, neuroscience, and Eastern philosophy. These expressive foundations are held in tension with more resolved and structured elements such as hard lines, geometric forms, and controlled gradients, resulting in abstract compositions that operate as exercises in duality.

Nicholas Hales was born in 1970 in Cape Town, South Africa, where he currently lives and works. He holds an Advanced Diploma in Fine Art (1992) and a Diploma in Graphic Design (1991) from the University of Cape Town. Hales has participated in several international residency projects which include: L’Air Arts in Paris, France in 2019; Chateau d’Orquevaux Residency in France and Enter Text in Arteles, Finland, both in 2018; and Vermont Studio Centre, residency, USA in 2010.

Hales has presented six solo exhibitions following his first at the Irma Stern Museum in Cape Town, South Africa in 1999. They are: Balance - Masculine and Feminine at Association for Visual Arts in Cape Town, South Africa in 2002; Portals at João Ferreira Gallery in Cape Town, South Africa in 2005; Adytum at João Ferreira Gallery in Cape Town, South Africa in 2007; Games at Tokara in Stellenbosch, South Africa in 2018; and Alchemy at 99 loop in Cape Town, South Africa in 2022.

Selected group exhibitions include: Hold That Thought at 99 Loop Gallery in Cape Town, South Africa and Between Worlds at Barnard Gallery in Cape Town, South Africa, both in 2024; Spier Light Art Festival at Spier in Stellenbosch, South Africa in 2022; The Invisible Realm of Possibility at Fédération Internationale de l'Art Photographique (FIAP) in Paris, France in 2019; Annual Detroit International Video Festival at the Museum of New Art (MONA) in Detroit, USA in 2003; YDETAG at the Iziko South African National Gallery in Cape Town, South Africa in 2001

Hale’s work is included in the permanent collections of L’Air Arts in Paris, France; Museum of New Art (MONA) in Detroit, USA ; and Spier Arts Trust in Stellenbosch, South Africa, among others.