profiles

A self proclaimed Francophile, Nikki couldn't resist using the painting as her jumping-off point, which led her first to Paris and then to an unusual way of creating her own art.

"I went over there a few times and I decided to try and find the island where Seurat painted his picture. When I eventually found it, I sat there and recorded it like he did, watching the people coming and going.

Seurat's 'La Grande Jatte' (detail)

"When I got back, I thought 'I'd love to make a version of it how it is now, but I don't want to paint it, I want it to be quirky'. I started playing with sequins and buttons, trying to use something circular to represent the dot.

"I just thought 'I'm going to try a hole-punch dot'. I did a sample piece of a portrait of my friends first to see if it would work.

"When it did, I thought 'this is going to take so long, but it looks so cool'. I knew I didn't have a lot of time but I just went for it."

A section of Nikki's picture

When Nikki says it took a long time, she really means it. To do a piece measuring 10cm by 10cm, she could be working for "a good eight to 10 hours, and that’s if you've worked out where every piece is going first!"

And there's the reason for the long hours – the working out. Before Nikki even stuck a dot on the picture, she had to plan its place in the piece, working out the tonal values of each section and then hole-punching the correct mixture of colours into a pot - in case you're wondering, alongside normal coloured card, Nikki used a fair few DIY store paint sample charts to get the right tones.

"I had one night off. I went to bed one morning at 11 o'clock, as I'd stayed up all night finishing off one section, and I woke up later and thought 'no, I can't do it any more today!'

"That was my only time off. I missed my friend's baby's christening, I missed friends' birthdays – I just sat there hole-punching and tweezering and sorting out colours one by one."

All that dedication was worth it, as the picture, which has been on display as part of the University's end-of-year exhibition, is a stunning piece of work which has already had offers made on it, though Nikki's not quite ready to part with it yet.

Nikki and her finished picture

What she is ready for is a break, and after all her hard work, she is taking a well-deserved rest before she starts on her next project - another dot picture, this time with an even harder twist.

"I'm playing with newspaper articles at the moment, trying to do a piece in black and white, which is far harder because there’s less tones and colours to play with to get the distinction."

That one might well be her last paper pointillist picture – as she jokes, she doesn't "know how many I'll do, because I think I might go dotty" – but even if it is, she can be sure of one thing – she's done her beloved Paris and the inspirational Georges-Pierre Seurat proud.