Coach Class
Coach Class is hosted by Dom Burch. He is a business coach and mentor. He interviews fellow coaches about their field of expertise, and inspirational leaders about what makes them tick, how they motivate themselves and others, and what it means to be authentic.
Coach Class
Nina Hunter: Armour, Altar, and the Art of Becoming Her True Self
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Today’s conversation feels less like an interview and more like an arrival.
Recorded on site in Nina Hunter’s riverside studio overlooking the weir at Hirst Wood — with the River Aire flowing just beyond the garden — this episode is an intimate exploration of creativity, feminine energy, and what it means to live in full alignment with your purpose.
Nina is a painter, illustrator, and founder of Saltaire Art Gallery. Her work explores “soft power”: an unassuming energy of tenderness that is unbreakable. In this conversation, she shares the long, quiet arc of her becoming — from a bohemian seaside town in Poland, through years of classical piano training and an MA at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk, to a successful international illustration career… and finally, back to her first love: painting.
Nina speaks candidly about the years spent putting herself last — building a career, raising her son, and prioritising everyone else — before reaching the moment where she decided she would no longer compromise. Painting became more than a practice. It became ritual. Healing. A way of standing before a blank canvas and contemplating life itself.
Along the way, Nina reflects on the power of words and intention, and how her belief in manifestation — shaped by Dr. Joe Dispenza’s work — has influenced not only her mindset, but the reality she has built. She shares how Saltaire has shaped her pace of life and her creative world: a place filled with artists, philosophical conversations, daily walks, and time in nature. A place where happiness isn’t a reward, but a discipline.
A turning point comes when Nina describes how, in 2019, she knew what she wanted to convey — but didn’t yet have the vocabulary to express it. Years of experimentation, persistence, and failure followed. Then last year, something shifted. The work began to land with a new truthfulness — and collectors felt it. In 2025, Nina sold fifteen paintings, receiving messages from art lovers who told her they could feel the energy in the work.
Nina also shares a refreshingly open view of AI, describing it not as a threat to creativity but as a tool — a collaborator — and even a new kind of art director or photographer, enabling artists to create at a new level.
The conversation leads to a threshold moment: Nina is reopening Saltaire Art Gallery — this time as herself — with the launch of Nina Hunter Gallery & Collectors Lounge, and her solo show, “Thy Will Be Done”, on International Women’s Day.
As Nina says: the painting process is a roller coaster — sometimes torture — but when it ends with a “hell yes”, it’s ecstasy.
“Thy Will Be Done”
📅 8 March (International Women’s Day)
📍 Saltaire, West Yorkshire
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