“dark side of Disney meets northern landscape”
“With their strange layerings of unexpected filmic and art historical references, (dark side of Walt Disney meets northern landscape), Nick Archer’s paintings have always seemed among the more genuinely complex and cultured explorations of the possibilities of landscape painting in an increasingly urbanised and disinherited culture: the more we are removed from it the deeper into our psyche it goes. These powerful new works seem to darken the picture further – David Lynch and ‘Blade Runner’ meet Altdorfer Bosch and Uccello among others, the layering involved in his paint process underlining the veils of estrangement between us and a lost Edenic world. Thus, in his images of children gazing at apparently deserted houses, we sense the loss as a profoundly metaphysical one.” – Nicholas Usherwood 2017, Galleries Magazine – review of ‘The Journey’ exhibitionNick Archer (born 1963) lives and works in East Sussex, England. He trained at the Royal Academy Schools in London (1996-1999), he won several awards, including 1st at the ‘Hunting Art Prize’, commendation at the ‘BP Portrait Award’ and the Figure Painting Award at the ‘Discerning Eye’.
Nick has exhibited extensively in the UK and Europe since 1999, including solo exhibitions with Louise Alexander Gallery (Porto Cervo, Italy), Sarah Myerscough Fine Art (London), Long and Ryle (London), Galerie Hug (Paris) and a solo show at Gowen Contemporary (Geneva) in 2014 and 2017.
He has featured in museum exhibitions including the National Portrait Gallery (London), the Wandsworth Museum (London). In 201. He had a solo exhibition at the Maison de la Culture (Metz, France) and had a solo show at the Hastings Museum (East Sussex). Nick curated ‘Time, memory and landscape’ a group exhibition at Long and Ryle, highlighting evolution in contemporary landscape painting. In 2019 he had a solo booth presentation of his work at ‘Untitled’ art fair in San Francisco with New York gallery Christine Park gallery.
He has also featured at Dallas Art fair 2019 & 2020, Art Tokyo 2019 and Aspen art fair 2019 with Christine Park gallery. The poured and layering process in his paintings is crucial to his practise. This led toward an involvement with the moving image. He animated the process of piling up layers of transparent paint on glass to reveal an artist at work. The resultant animated film ‘Snow’ has been shown internationally.
Nick Archer’s work is held in private, corporate and public collections around the world including the future satellite of the Hermitage Museum (Moscow). He is currently represented by Christine Park gallery in New York, Long and Ryle in London and Gowen Contemporary in Geneva.