Nici Cumpston is simultaneously an artist, a curator, a writer, and an educator. Her family are of Barkandji, Afghan, Irish and English descent and she currently lives and works in Adelaide on Kaurna Country. 

Nici studied fine arts, specialising in Photography at the University of South Australia, and has worked as a lecturer at Tauondi Aboriginal Community College, Port Adelaide, as well as at the University of South Australia. She commenced as the inaugural Curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art at the Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA) in 2008 and has been the Artistic Director of Tarnanthi Festival of Contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art at AGSA since its inception in 2014. 

She has exhibited her works of art since 1998 and has been invited to participate in many prestigious art awards and artist residencies as well as group and solo exhibitions. In 2014 she travelled to the USA as an artist in residence and held a solo exhibition, having been there, at Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, as well as a solo exhibition at Harvey Art Projects in Ketchum, Idaho. In 2018 she travelled to Berlin for the exhibition Indigenous Australia: Masterworks from the National Gallery of Australia, at me Collectors Room, and had a solo exhibition Calling In at Michael Reid Gallery, Berlin. Her work is held in major institutions and private collections both nationally and internationally.  

Nici combines her time curating, collaborating, and creating photographic works that share stories of Aboriginal occupation and ongoing survival on Country.