Simon Nicholas | Urban Landscapes

Enjoy speaking to the artist in person about his elusive process of painting: "attempting to work in the gap between observation, intuition/memory, and photographic references." 

“My recent work has been based on urban landscapes, where the borders between reality, fiction and photographic representation are brought into question. Using formal elements such as underlying grids, repetition and pattern, I wish to create pictures which swing ambiguously between figuration and abstraction. An important aspect of these paintings is that none of them are based on photographs, although they appear to refer to a photographic source. One of my main intentions is to imply and attempt to construct a photo-graphic reality. As a painter one usually has three main ways of working: either from observation, or by intuition/ memory, or from photographs. My working process in recent years has gradually led me into a complicated and challenging area whereby I am attempting to work in the gap between these three options as they usually tend to exclude each other. I am interested in making pictures which attempt to combine opposites, and whilst appearing at first sight conventional, offer ambiguous readings that transform the reality of the world they appear to represent into sophisticated and endless fiction which distances us from spaces that we think we recognize. The vision is intended to be entirely urban and contemporary.” -Simon Nicholas