Nicola Thompson, a Visual Artist based in the North East of the UK. Graduated from Sunderland University with a BA (Hons) Fine Art in 1998 and a Masters Degree in Visual Communication (Illustration) with the Interactive Design Institute from the University of Hertfordshire. Her work features many forms of "real life issues", which perhaps in the past have been forgotten or glossed over. This recent portfolio and exhibition looks at the plight of coal miners who have suffered through unemployment in their communities following the pit closures. She describes her work as: "not just being about history, but about the present and the future." Her work focusses on expressive mixed media and explores the merging of raw materials with the use of fine art based techniques. Her tactile approach to industrial material is based around the use of found objects in and around colliery sites to create a stronger narrative in her layered and complex modern storytelling of coal minings decline.