Nick Offer's Style and Practice
Nick is currently painting landscapes which reflect the way that human presences have shaped them. He is interested in how these human traces may be seen as legacies of lives - both turbulent and mundane - which manifest themselves in myriad physical 'scars' on the land. These may take the form of abandoned buildings, farmlands and battlegrounds or, less physically, the imagined individual histories which are buried beneath the earth. To convey this sense when approaching a painting he first lays down a variety of textures - using ink and image transfer of elemental life forms such as squid, molluscs etc - which might shine through subsequent layers of paint in an unexpected and effective way. Or to just be there, ready to excavate at the point when the painting inevitably becomes predictable and needs a jolt.
Exhibitions and Collections
Nick has exhibited globally with a focus on the UK and Australia. The artist has been a finalist in numerous art competitions globally including 'Figurative Art Now' and 'The Lynn Painter Stainers Prize' both at the Mall Galleries, London and The National Contemporary Art Prize, Canberra where he has twice been 'highly commended' (2023,2024). He won Australia's prestigious $20,000 Doyles Landscape Award in 2024 and in the same year received special mention at the Lethbridge Landscape Award (Brisbane). Two of his recent paintings are owned by the ruler of Dubai and Princess Haya of Jordan.
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