Nick Archer: Jamboree

9th November – 1st December

Nick Archer’s obsession is paint and the mysterious processes involved in its complex language. The artist maintains that the subject matter is only a framework, a device to construct paintings, and this notion is central to understanding his new work, which is drawn from an eclectic array of sources. The artist insists that the actual ‘subject’ of his painting is the relationship between order and chaos and that the essence of the work reveals itself through the process of making rather than the content and any implied narratives.

He starts by layering paint in a chaotic, quasi-abstract fashion; pouring, splashing and smearing. He continues to build up the surface in a random manner with the introduction of materials such as gold leaf, glass beads and lace which are embedded into the wet paint. The final layer brings order as the artist magically weaves the image into the surface of the canvas. The selected imagery is varied and arbitrary – from found newspaper cuttings of cheerleaders, and postcards of rural Britain to photographs taken by the artist. He consciously distances himself from their content through a photographic approach to painting. The viewer is drawn to the complex surface of the work and how it is made. The ‘subject’ of the work is a journey into the language of paint - the process and balance - as for Archer they reflect the way he sees the world.