past exhibition | J.A. Nicholls: On touch | 17 March - 9 April 2022

Bobinska Brownlee is delighted to present new work by J. A. Nicholls. These are paintings made in makeshift spaces during the early no-touch phase of the pandemic and, more recently, in the studio in covid’s changing wake.

“Sourced from photos on a phone, selves absorbed. Walking, working or simply being, solo or in company, they emerge in layers of line and colour. The palette is messy and the movement of the brush searching and uncertain. There are faces grounded timelessly, busy doing nothing but looking and being looked at. There are landscapes with nothing much to see but the figure or figures within. Roads and tracks are obliquely present and there is weather, changeable and undefined. Figures, or lives rather, are the focus and the paint feels its path towards them.

This body of work speaks of personal worlds, of desire, uncertainty and failure. Awkward and rough, the paint searches to and fro for a sense or touch of people absent and missed, settling here then there, upon uncertainty, disquiet, affection, intimacy. The paint pulses the presence of what’s missing”.

Nicholls studied painting at Chelsea College of Art and the Royal College, London. Selected exhibitions include 'Between parts undone' with artists David Lock and Gavin Maughfling at Studio1.1, Shoreditch; A Little Painting Show at Dead Pigeon Gallery, Liverpool; ODO2018 at Oriel Davies Gallery, Newtown; The Performativity of Painting at the Stephen Lawrence Gallery, Greenwich; the Ruth Borchard Prize at Piano Nobile; The Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition; Creative London, at Space_K, Gwacheon in Korea and Jerwood Contemporary Painters.

Private view: Thursday 17th March 5 - 8pm, with performance by Nicola Dale

Exhibition talk: Saturday 2nd April 2pm - Cherry Smyth in conversation with J.A. Nicholls

Cherry Smyth’s review in thisistomorrow.info

Installation images: Max Colson