Nic’s love of painting began when he was living in London in the nineties. Mesmerised by the stunning works at the National gallery, Tate Britain and latterly Tate Modern, this act of mark making was something Nic wanted to be part of. Nic studied at St Martins School of Art whilst he worked and enjoyed the pre-internet days of postmodern Britain.

After returning to New Zealand, Nic enrolled in a degree course where he was heavily influenced by Petrus Van Der Velden’s Arthurs Pass works. This seemingly sublime style of nature versus man or indeed the worshipping of the power of nature was to sustain Nic’s raison d'être for the next 25 years.

Nic’s works are moody and sublime and take the viewer to those mountain passes and brooding coastlines where one cannot help but feel intimidated by the power of nature. They are typically New Zealand works, somewhat elemental and reductionist in their colour palette.

The works now take on an environmental concern with the mistiness and visual ambiguity a metaphor for things disappearing before our eyes. Nic incorporates text and the use of Te Reo becomes a visual design tool and an acknowledgement of the Tangata Whenua who lived in this land long before climate change was even a concept.

This website explores the “many” directions Nic’s art has taken him over the last 25 years and you will find works based on trips to the United Kingdom and Spain as well text works that are a nod to the many New Zealand artists who have communicated language in their paintings within a New Zealand art history context.