Nicky Basford
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“It is always exciting to see new work by Nicky Basford; she is a master of light and line. This new work, though, is more than exciting, it is exhilarating. Her mix-media & collage pieces – reflecting on subjects both near and far – are a revelation. They show us a fearless artist at the peak of her powers making beautiful, complex images that have the intellectual quality and intricate, flowing patterns of a Piranesi landscape. When I look at these new paintings, I can feel the presence of the artist. It is as if she is standing beside me. No more so than with the incredible Between Memory and Loss, Hope (Sunflowers), a magnificent work that radiates with colour and energy and hope and joy. I love it. I love it all.”
Will Gompertz, former BBC arts editor
I am a semi-abstract landscape painter concerned with the recollection of a place rather than its reproduction. My work is a combination of memory, emotion and physical detail and sits on a scale somewhere between abstraction and representation. Finding that point of balance fascinates me and, when it succeeds, I think the work holds a certain tension, ambiguity and beauty within it. As Cezanne put it, “painting from nature is not copying the object, it is realising one’s sensations”.
Working primarily in mixed media (acrylic, pencil, oil pastel, charcoal and collage), I am interested in layers and transparency. What’s seen and not seen. The transience, beauty and fragility of things.
This show includes work made in Moclin, a small town outside Granada in Andalusia, in Aldeburgh whilst on an artist’s residency at the Beach Lookout, a series made about Battersea Park and the Henry Moore sculpture by the lake and a collection which is the result of drawings made from video clips whilst out walking the Sussex woods and hedgerows in winter.
Biography
Nicky studied at Chelsea, Camberwell and Newcastle Schools of Art and after a career in art and retail, returned to full time painting in 2001. She has exhibited widely including at the Royal College of Art, Royal Watercolour Society, Toronto Art Fair, Affordable Art Fair, 20/21, Belgrave St Ives, Penhaven Gallery St Ives, Brian Sinfield Gallery, Cricket Fine Art and the Chelsea Arts Club. This will be her eighth solo show.