©Lydon Fine Art 2008
Nicola first started exploring the abstract style during her Bachelors degree. She wanted to find a way to portray the concept of memory without using the conventional process of representational subject form. Having studies colour theory in significant detail, she devised her own ‘recipe’ to allow the aura of memory to be transcribed onto the canvas in a way in which it would speak for itself.
Continuously fascinated with the more mysterious realms of art history, she found herself inspired by alchemists and philosophers alike. As with any abstract style there was a danger of being too liberal and the academic system unknowingly worked in her favour, allowing her to retain a foundational structure for her style so that the strengths of her concepts could remain profound.
Endless and fathomably sizeable fascinations such as beauty and truth became her addiction to portray. Inspired by Angelic and Aramaic scripts, she often writes sizeable pieces to accompany the abstracts. They retain a value which is as much of an importance to her as they are to the viewer, but they can be acknowledged or not, depending on their relevant significance to the viewer concerned.
By 2002 she started fusing the representational with the abstract into to one combined vision. This began primarily as a personal fascination by experimenting with overlaying techniques graphically, but soon progressed as her clients took an interest in the different energy portrayed by this fusion.
She moved further and started fusing three dimensional material onto the canvas itself. Her passion for the anatural saw the likes of fresh arum lilies being placed onto canvas, sealed with varnishes and enamels, surrounded by flowing colour. Thus the concept of memory took another step forward. In the case of the lilies, they were removed once decayed, leaving their own physical memory of where they had been on the canvas, a silhouette held and preserved.
Thoughts Concerning The Abstract
Nicola’s work lies within the concepts of love, longing and desire within memory.
The paintings she creates portray the remnants, shadows and silhouettes of what lies in our memories. These can be everyday experiences or rare, intimate moments of great intensity lasting only seconds but remaining in memory for eternity; our own personal epitaphs. Whilst painting Nicola often uses the mediums of photography and video in order to capture this butterfly we call recollection. As a recording processes these mediums capture all the patterns which become lost to the eye once the paint is dry.
Paint flows like consciousness flows and so the emotional experiences are taken from the mind to the canvas.
“According to Plato, man is a dual creature. We have a body that ‘flows’, is inseparably bound to the world of the senses, and is subject to the same fate as everything else.”
Jostein Gaarder
ABSTRACT GALLERY