Introduction to Nick’s art

Linda Marshall, Jenny Fortune and Jenny Rodwell

As a teenager Nick had an aptitude for visual art, and did some lovely drawings and water-colours.  In his retirement, he threw himself into making visual art.  He did the Fine Art foundation course at Chesterfield College, along with his friends Linda Marshall, Angela Martin and Jenny Fortune, with whom, characteristically, he subsequently formed a little art collective to discuss their work.   He produced varied and beautiful pictures and sculptures, many of them, but not all of them, politically charged.  So we have an exhibition of his art work here.  It is in the space at the end of this room, with the exception of Linda’s slide show which is in the foyer.

There are five kinds of work by Nick in this exhibition.

* Portraits, some of which he did as a teenager, some more recently, plus some recent works on paper. 

* His explicitly political works.  These concern the climate catastrophe, and the exploitation of labour - including the fabric depicting sweat shop work.  A video-art work on the climate catastrophe will be shown in the next part of this celebration.

* Nick made many digital images, some based on photographs transformed with photoshop, some originated in photoshop.  Most of the photographs he used were of nature: flowing water, ice, grasses, lichens.  Some of the resulting images are purely abstract, some feel like landscapes.  Linda has made a slide show of a selection of these digital images, which is showing in the lounge in the foyer.

*  Nick made sculptures and reliefs using carboard and papier mache.  The largest is Hadrian, a representation of toxic masculinity.

In this Art section of the website of the celebration, there are photographs of these various art works, plus Linda’s slide show.  Enjoy!