Award winning local artist Nicole Porter is embarking on a new venture by opening a fine art gallery. The Nicole Porter Gallery, which is situated in the heart of the city at 88 King Street, Aberdeen, is having a grand opening on Friday 10th September at 7.30pm. The gallery will be home to Nicole’s studio where visitors are invited to gain an insight into the creative processes during the North East Open Studios week from the 11th to the 19th of September. As a former Ellon Academy pupil, she gained a first class honours degree from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design in Dundee in 2008. She has been awarded many awards including the prestigious Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant, which allowed her to fulfill her dream of studying in Norway for eight months with the world-renowned painter Odd Nerdrum. She then moved to Paris to continue her studies during the summer of 2009 before moving to New York to study with American artists Steven Assael, Michael Grimaldi, Costa Vavagiaski and Frank Porcu. Nicole says…I found in New York that commissioning a portrait is more popular than ever with the residents of the Big Apple wanting their self-image created in this timeless form of art. Nicole hopes to offer the people of Aberdeen this opportunity to be immortalised too. Nicole’s representational paintings, which combine still life and portraiture in a variety of scales, have recently been awarded her second Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant and the Aberdeenshire Visual Artists Award. She is also a member of the Gordon Forum for the Arts where she was awarded the People’s Choice Award at the 2010 open exhibition in Inverurie. A visit to The Nicole Porter Gallery is sure to be a unique experience, so go along to the gallery to see what you think.