NICK MILLEN

 

 

Current

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All Photos: Astrid Mulder

 

My work facilitates a transhistorical meeting point for materials and mediums utilised in image making and public design. Following a process of tradition and intuition, I draw together methods of mosaic, fresco, terrazzo, low relief sculpture, abstract painting, artisanal labour, digital painting and contemporary construction

The work integrates fine art history and some its core mediums with this ever powerful, peripheral beast of the city and its varying roles in cosmology, self-image and civic development.

Slim densities of concrete, lime, paint and paper images lock against mosaic structures on linen and hemp. Using sanders, the layers of material are excavated and enmeshed, forming a sculpted surface. The surface takes on an ontological fusion. Stripped back pixelated prints tarry alongside layers of terrazzo style concrete paint. The confluence of ancient, contemporary, artistic and labour methods expresses itself as an overlapping, iconoclastic swell – a kind of city ecology.

 

 

NM

 

2023

Photo Credit: Jessica Maurer

 

 

Photo Credit: Jessica Maurer

 

 

Photo Credit: Jessica Maurer

 

 

Photo Credit: Astrid Mulder

 

 

Photo Credit: Jessica Maurer

 

 

Photo Credit: Astrid Mulder

 

 

 

 

 

Photo Credit: Astrid Mulder

 

 

 

 

 

Photo Credit: Astrid Mulder

 

 

Photo Credit: Jessica Maurer

 

 

Photo Credit: Astrid Mulder

 

 

Photo Credit: Astrid Mulder

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Between mosaics and digital images, recurring currents persist. The pixel, the tesserae, the point; the singular element that works to form the whole combines with its kin in resolution. Whole in itself, each varied element takes on a parallel context within its wider image. This is a mode of downward abstraction. Like getting up close with a billboard advertisement, the particles appear ever more alien from the total image they help to form.

Within and without ever burgeoning technologies, fundamental modalities possess new hardware like smoky liquid. In these artworks, the intersections of varying resolution styles highlight persistent modes of image creation across time.

 

 

2022

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo Credit: Astrid Mulder

 

 

 

Photo Credit: Astrid Mulder

 

 

 

 

Photo Credit: Astrid Mulder

 

 

 

Photo Credit: Astrid Mulder

 

 

 

Photo Credit: Astrid Mulder

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Utilising contemporary construction materials, I draw together renaissance methodologies to conflate material histories of labour and artistic production. The works blur distinctions between figure and ground, between the focused and the periphery, between utilitarianism and sheer poetics.

My concern is with merging the history of art with the back drop of the city itself – infusing the conscious experience of viewing art, architectural patinas and advertising material with the hazily unconscious, liminal dream space of footpaths, traffic islands and public infrastructure. The works register a confluence between shared, historicised narratives of conscious propagation and the internalised psychic imaginaries that leave quiet, physical traces within city blocks.

 

 

 

 

2021

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Expressing material transitions between liquid and solid states, the work combines seemingly disparate elements into integrated wholes.

Paint, waste, plastics, pigments, dust, stones, sand, dye and earth are mixed with concrete and cast into solid forms. These forms/sculptures become the subject and primary material for installations and paintings. For the paintings, the forms and are broken up and ground down into hand-dyed canvases.

 

 

 

 

2020

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The paintings and sculptures build a dialogue between transhistorical technologies, transitional earth cycles and the contemporary challenge to integrate problematic materials into functional networks.

 

 

 

 

Earlier

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Contact Nick Millen

enquiries@nickmillen.com

instagram: @nrmillen