The art of Helen Nicholson
Helen Nicholson's art offers unexpected pleasures. At an exhibition of her work you find yourself drawn to the close examination of objects that you would normally not consider worthy of a second look. What is usually discarded and peripheral to one's concern you find returning to be the subject of an attentive regard. The objects on display are mundane, familiar, they could be found anywhere. In a way, they are objects that inhabit a tactile and, consequently, largely invisible domain. They pass unnoticed within the regularity of everyday use. Indeed, the objects are so familiar and mundane that when they are placed in an art context it can be as though you are seeing them for the first 'time. Placed in a gallery the objects are given an aesthetic after-life as they re-appear with a new and sometimes quite strange visibility.
What I am describing here is not necessarily a new artistic strategy. It can be seen as quite common in twentieth century art and even well before. Norman Bryson has with great insight analysed the effects of this artistic strategy as it has occurred in still-life painting, with the title of his book- Looking at the Overlooked succinctly capturing the aesthetic concerns of this approach. I like to think of Helen Nicholson as a contemporary still-life painter. What, though, might this mean? Norman Bryson says little about the fate of still-life painting in the twentieth century. What would still-life painting be today? Why associate Helen Nicholson's work with still-life painting if what she exhibits often could not even be classified as painting? These are some of the questions that you begin to ask yourself as you contemplate the... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline