George Nick: Dreams, Schemes and Evasion
On View: November 10 – December 16, 2017
Reception: Friday, November 10, 6 - 8pm
Lunch break Artist Q&A - Wednesday, November 29, 12:30pm
Each morning, while the rest of us are rolling out of bed and rubbing our eyes, George Nick is already on his way to a painting site, sometimes traveling an hour and a half to reach it. He sets up his easel and makes the most of the early morning light. He heads back after lunch, only to work on still lifes in his studio. The next day is like the preceding one, and on and on.
Painting is hard work for Nick and he’d have it no other way. If he’s figured it out, he’s already moved on; the moment something has become formulaic, he turns to a new challenge. It’s a mantra we hear every time we visit the studio.
“This is hard work,” Nick remarks.
“I wrestled with this painting for months.”
“If I figure it out after one go or after eighty goes, I’m happy.”
“You see this new tone? It’s almost right.”
After 90 years of life he still struggles with each painting.
George Nick
Blurring the line between realism and expressionism, Nick has described his painting style as intuitive and inventive. What we see between the frames is not a moment frozen in time, but a collection of moments that unify in our mind’s eye. Nicks paintings are complicated, he is constantly running in circles, following ideas that lead to moments of clarification which, in turn, give birth to a new set of problems and intangible thoughts waiting to be chased down and painted.
Nick's work is included in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., among many others.