In this series we chat to NewBlood artists, finding out more about their practice, what makes them tick, and what we’re looking forward to seeing from them in the future.
This week’s artist is Nicola Wiltshire. Nicola is a New Blood Art Master: she’s been with us since graduating as her career has successfully progressed. She works in oil paints on fabric canvases, using striking swathes of colour to create radiant still lifes, which are her focus at the moment after working with portraiture and landscape. Read on to find out more about Nicola’s philosophies of colour, her trajectory as a painter, and her inspiration in other artists past and present.
You use colour in a very bold, elemental way. How have you arrived at this point in your use of colour?
Ooh, that’s a tough question. Colour is so magical and elusive. Is there any way of really knowing if your yellow is the same as mine? All I know is I’ve been fascinated with colour since childhood. I grew up in a colourful home and wore colourful 90’s clothes. The first time I understood the true power of colour was during my first art lesson at upper school. The teacher, Mrs Browning, asked us all to draw a little square of purple on a blank page. She timed us whilst we – a class of nervous and perplexed 13 year olds – stared at the squares. We were then told to quickly move our gaze to a sheet of plain white paper, where a yellow square hovered just outside reality. It totally blew my mind. After that, I couldn’t help but see everything through the colour wheel. The paintings I studied, plus adverts and fashion. Even nature works in complementary colours. And there’s the emotional aspect too, of course. I went through a period of making really sombre paintings. They became progressively dark and more sad until I made a piece that was almost exclusively black. It was so emotionally heavy that it was sort of amusing. It was as if I’d hit some kind of colour rock bottom. Intuitively, the next painting was overwhelmingly orange and from there I’ve embraced full, saturated colour.
How do form and colour relate in your work?
That’s a question I asked myself at the start of this year! Colour is so important to me, but so is form. The shapes have to be appealing, strong. Colour is almost like the content and form is the structure – they work together like words and tone. This quote by Matisse is as close as I can get to answering the question: “What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity, devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter, an art that could be for every mental worker, for the business man as well as the man of letters, for example, a soothing, calming influence on the mind, something like a good armchair that provides relaxation from fatigue.”
Your style has changed in your recent still lifes, the genre currently predominating in your work. What is it that draws you to develop within this genre?
It’s interesting you would say my style has changed. I think the work is more simplified, but the colour play and paint application are exactly the same. The still lifes are like a minimalist version of my other work. When I paint the plants and flowers, it feels like I’m zooming in on a bigger painting. There are often only three components (the plant and two background colours), so only three colours. For a portrait or landscape, there can be much more going on and therefore more opportunity for layering and texture. Perhaps I feel more connected to colour at the moment.
You’ve worked in portraiture and landscape as well as still life. Have you found these different genres have impacted each other in your work?
Definitely! I’d say my approach to painting is very cyclical. I work in small series, with each collection feeding into the next. The still lifes are very pared back, so there is nowhere to hide from bad colour choices. The landscapes require depth and movement, or they just feel like a series of colourful shapes. And the portraits need all of this, but with stronger storytelling. It’s all one.
You put such care into your materials, using high quality fabrics that you source and actually making your own paints. Does this bring a ritualistic element to your process?
That’s very kind of you to say! Yes, absolutely. The painting process starts in a fabric shop – handling fabrics and grouping them together. I do everything myself, from building stretchers to priming fabric, and from making paint to painting frames. I see every stage of the painting process as an opportunity to shape the work. There is definitely a ritualistic element involved. You have to be present, or it all goes wrong.
What’s the significance, do you think, when an artist is so closely involved in the production of their materials?
Take one of your artists, Alice Miller, who has recently been on a rollercoaster journey with cobalt violet. Instead of buying the colour in a tube, she’s had to read and experiment her way through failed batches to figure out how to make an oil paint that is exactly right for her. It can be a frustrating way of working and very time-consuming (especially with a demanding pigment such as cobalt violet) but so rewarding too! It’s the way paint was made until very recently, so it feels right to maintain this connection with painting’s roots.
Tell us a bit about your studio.
My studio is at home! I used to be almost embarrassed with my modest home studio, but I felt so lucky during lockdown. I’ve always been an at-home painter. Even during art school, I’d always do my main work at home. Painting is very much absorbed into my daily routine, so it makes sense to do it at home, where I have different ways of playing music, all my books, my computer…everything! My studio is a section of the living room, which is massive with high ceilings and south-facing windows. The flat was built in 1903, so it can be freezing, but it’s worth it for the space. I love being able to look at my paintings at different times of day and often find myself stepping into my studio when I hadn’t planned to. Sometimes I’ll look at a painting at night and suddenly realise what it’s missing. Overall it really suits what I need at this point in my life.
You’re based in Dundee. Has living in Scotland influenced the direction of your work?
You touched on the main influence earlier. I moved to Scotland when I was 27 and until then, I had only ever painted people. I’m not sure I’d painted a landscape or plant at all until moving here. Living in London, you are surrounded by all these people. Hundreds of strangers pass you by every day and I used to imagine their stories. Painting allowed me to familiarise myself with these strangers – I liked the idea that we were all experiencing the same basic set of emotions. Part of me wishes I was still in that space, but the urge sort of disappeared after I moved to Dundee. The people aren’t so prominent, if that makes sense? The landscape is, however. I realised you could explore similar ideas with winding paths and trees, or with the strange way leaves intertwine.
Art history icon and/or contemporary influence?
Henri Matisse, Marlene Dumas (I met her once!), Paul Gauguin, Chantal Joffe, Alice Neel, Egon Schiele, Edvard Munch, David Hockney. These are my all-time heroes.
You’ve been a NewBlood Art Master since 2018, following numerous solo and group shows and The Guardian selecting you as an artist to watch. What will the next year bring for you?
I absolutely love being part of the New Blood Art family. There are so many great artists, so thank you! I have a couple of exhibitions confirmed early next year, plus an exciting project in conversation, but I’m actually hoping to keep 2022 fairly open. 2021 has been the year of the commission – I’ve had 9 this year, which is loads for me. It’s been amazing and I must have learned a lot, but I haven’t had time to reflect. I’d like to use those first few months to work through some ideas, so hopefully I’ll have some strong work emerging with the bulbs in Spring!
