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Nicolas Party works across a wide range of different media. Primarily known for his colour-saturated paintings and murals, he also makes painted sculptures, pastels, installations, prints and drawings, and works as a curator. Party often paints portraits and still lifes of everyday objects, which he strips of all extraneous detail. Rather than creating faithful depictions from nature, he uses these seemingly innocuous subjects as springboards for an exploration into the art of painting itself. His concerns lie, therefore, less in the accurate depiction of nature, and more in its translation and transformation through colour, materials and composition.

The challenge is to capture the essence of these subjects in new and revelatory ways, and in so doing to heighten their physical and emotional resonance. Clear forms, painterly precision, a vibrant colour palette and a keen eye for composition coalesce into works that are accessible and seductive but, at the same time, continue a long-standing art-historical dialogue between representation and abstraction, and observation and the imagination. Party is also interested in the power of paint to alter our perception of the built environment and, within a gallery context, how we experience art. To this end, he regularly paints murals, either as stand-alone works or as carefully orchestrated settings for his paintings.

(courtesy of Xavier Hufkens)