The Daily Norm

Nov 30

My Scandinavian Forest – featured on the House of Fraser Blog

I interrupt this Paris broadcast to bring you important news of my feature as a Christmas tree decorating “expert” on an article in the House of Fraser blog this week. For those of you located otherwise than in the UK, House of Fraser is one of the UK’s biggest and best known department store brands – what Macy’s is to New York, House of Fraser perhaps is to London. And so to be chosen as an expert tree decorator and to share my best tips for decorating the perfect Christmas tree with HOF audiences this Christmas is something of an honour, and a thrill.

Regulars of The Daily Norm, and readers from the last two years will know that when Christmas comes along, I embark upon an extensive decorational operation which does not stop until each of my 4 Christmas trees and various Christmas installations around my home are complete. This year’s decorational festivities are only just commencing, and you can expect an abundance of decoration-themed posts soon to come. But so thrilled was I to have my “Scandinavian Forest” featured on the HOF blog this year that I thought I would kick start my 2013 Christmas commentary a little early.

The Scandinavian Forest, featured in the HOF blog, was an idea which I introduced last year when, asides from decorating the main tree in my bedroom, I seized upon an idea to install a host of smaller accompanying decorations along the surface of my chests of drawers. From a small central tree adorned with little birds, paper lanterns and miniature mugs featuring illustrations from Tove Jansson’s Moomin adventures (straight out of Finland), this idea grew and grew so that by the end, I literally had a forest of small little white and turquoise trees accompanied by a variety of woodland animals and felt snowflakes and baubles littering the ground. As these photos will hopefully demonstrate, I have decorated my little forest with zeal. All that now remains is to put up the large tree which will accompany it. Watch this space for that.

In the meantime don’t forget to check out the House of Fraser article. Right, back to Paris….

All photos and written content are strictly the copyright of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown © 2013 and The Daily Norm. All rights are reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

Nov 29

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Paris | Photography Focus – Les Jardins et les chaises

Paris may not be the greenest of cities in the world, but there is something intrinsically Parisian about the parks and gardens which shape it. With their tightly trimmed box hedges and carefully manicured trees, their gravelly, sandy ground and lack of lawns (perfect for a game of pétanque or boules with a few amis) and with their long wide promenades punctuated by lone statues and cluttered with strolling well-dressed flaneurs with their equally quaffed dogs, the parks of Paris are to me the heart and soul of the city, representing the ordered formality of the Haussmann planned boulevards, reflecting the grandeur of the more built up areas of the city, and providing much needed space for the residents of the city to collectively let their hair down.

But more than the sandy paths, the clipped hedges and the boules, the randomly collected green metal chairs are for me the symbol of Paris. Rather than, or sometimes as well as the benches which line the parks, Parisian gardens are always full of scattered chairs, some angled at a steep incline to allow the sitter to langour in the sunshine, and others more upright and formal, but none of them attached to the ground so that, at any one time, you can find them in a diverse array of compositions. So characteristic are these chairs of the gardens of Paris that I have made them the focus of my photographic exploration of the Paris gardens which we were strolling through between our various trips to art galleries, photos which also aptly reflect the wonderful array of autumn colours which burned brightly in Paris despite the overcast weather and the very cold winter temperatures. Enjoy!

All photos and written content are strictly the copyright of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown © 2013 and The Daily Norm. All rights are reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

The Daily Norm’s Photo of the Week – Preened pups of Paris (daily-norm.com)
Paris | Art tour 2013 – Kahlo and Rivera (daily-norm.com)

Nov 27

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Paris | Art tour 2013 – Kahlo and Rivera

I would like to start off my little Paris art series with a moan about London. For all the great events which take place in the city, its exhibitions tend to pale into insignificance when compared with Paris. Take the exhibitions that are on at the moment. At the Royal Academy, the grand galleries of the Burlington Palace are given over to an exhibition surveying the art history of Australia. Well we all know that Australia has no art history, and this exhibition demonstrates as much. Then there’s Tate Modern’s new retrospective on Paul Klee which presents room after room of samey small little Bauhaus explorations – and leaves the visitor as flat as the image so meticulously conceived by Klee on paper. And let us not forget the Royal Academy’s other homage to a nation’s art – its recent Mexico show, whose only inclusion of perhaps the greatest artist ever to come out of Mexico, Frida Kahlo, was a painting so small (and I mean ridiculously small) that you had to squint to see it.

Rivera’s cubist period

None of this in Paris, whose exhibitions present such a comprehensive survey of the particular artist at hand that you feel not only completely enriched at the end of the show, but also pretty exhausted too. And Paris doesn’t just have one blockbuster exhibition a year – no no, it holds a good three or four massive artistic events each season, hence why I feel the insuperable need to visit the city each year.

Really marking Paris out as the superior of its cross-channel neighbour this year is the Musée de l’Orangerie’s significant survey of the works of one Frida Kahlo, and her equally inspired artist husband, Diego Rivera. Entitled Art in Fusion, it explores what has to be one of the greatest married (and divorced, and then remarried) painterly partnerships of modern art history, with many of the most substantial of each artist’s oeuvres on exhibition, and not a tiny painting in sight.

The couple together

I have always adored the work of Frida Kahlo, resonating so easily with her emotionally raw artistic expression right from the time I first saw her work (ironically in London – those were the good days). For me, Kahlo’s paintings will always trump those of her hubbie’s, which are altogether more political for my taste. Either that or they are too superficial – such as paintings of children tying up lillies or portraits of Mexican natives. His works are altogether too easy to interpret at face value, while faced with a Kahlo masterpiece, you are kept guessing about all of the multi-layered complex meaning with which she imbues her works.

As ever, my favourite of her paintings are those which deal the most viscerally with her experiences of personal trauma – both the bus accident which crippled her for life, and the series of miscarriages which resulted, as well as her painful experience of Rivera’s relentless infidelity. This may make me morose, even morbid in my preferences, but then it was Frida’s works which first inspired me to commit my own life-changing accident to canvas.

Frida’s visceral pain-filled works

At the risk of being unfair to Rivera, of the canvases on show, a few stand out. I particularly enjoyed his cubist period when, as a young man, he found himself influenced by the early advent of this movement in 1900s Paris. However for the most part, it is Rivera’s murals which are his staggering life’s masterpieces, and sadly, despite some attempt at reproduction in the exhibition, these will require a trip to Mexico to be enjoyed to the full.

Rivera’s murals

That said, this show, which is a unique opportunity to see both the works of husband and wife displayed alongside each other, is an indisputably unmissable opportunity to see the artistic fusion which these two icons of Mexican art produced during their years together. And, being as it is in the Orangerie, if you find the vitality of colour and the depth of emotional expression a little too much to muster, there’s always Monet’s ultimately calming waterlillies to soothe you upstairs.

Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera | Art in Fusion is on at the Orangerie until 13 January 2013. If you want to avoid the vast queues which characterise all of the Paris exhibitions, I recommend buying tickets in advance.

VIDEO: Frida Kahlo ‘shunned by Mexico’s elite’ (bbc.co.uk)

Nov 26

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The Daily Norm’s Photo of the Week – Preened pups of Paris

There can be no hiding from my inexorable and unapologetic love of all things Parisian. The music of the old Montmartre dance halls has the power to transport me to a parallel consciousness; its abundant art collection contains some of the most incredible masterpieces the world has ever seen; and its streets are so atmospherically romantic, that images of the city litter my London flat. And yet for all of the sensations and memories which I attach to the city, and which I rely on whenever, during the year, I feel those familiar pangs to be there, there is no substitute for visiting the city itself. And with trains from London to Paris’ Gare du Nord taking a mere 2.15 hours, it would be silly not to.

So each year, around Christmas time, when the city is getting cold, when the chic winter fashion is having its airing, and when the cosy little Christmas markets are being set up along the wide stretches of the Champs Elysées, I tend to take the lightening-speed train journey under the Channel sea, to visit the city I love above all others. My excuse for visiting every year is the fantastic array of new art exhibitions which the city does so well every autumn, but in fact very little excuse is needed other than the undeniable need to plug my yearning soul back into this bastion of culture and civilisation once a year.

Having just embarked on my 2013 stay, the pages of The Daily Norm are about to go all belle Paris on you, and by way of kickstarting the season, I thought a quick photo of the week was due. For this week’s photographic focus, I have been a little greedy, selecting more of a theme than a single shot, but one nevertheless worthy of the attention. For if there is one thing that sums up the chic glamour of Paris for me, it is a Parisian’s dog. Never far from any resident of the city, a Parisian and his or her dog seem to be as inseparable as the French to their baguettes, and the city just wouldn’t be the same without the sight of those cute little well-dressed, perfectly preened dogs trotting alongside their equally debonair owners.

This week’s principal photo, and the shot that inspired me to write this post, is this photo of a svelte curly tailed chien, its beautiful long white hair contrasting delectably against its super stylish red pullover – a sight which is surely too sleek to be found anywhere but in Paris. This dog (someone will have to help me with the breed) was certainly an eyeopener, capturing the attention of many a photographing tourist as it passed by in the Jardin des Tulleries (myself included). However, she was not alone. In the remainder of this post I include a few other super cute doggy shots from the trip – one little dow-eyed doggie sitting so well behaved in the lobby of our hotel; another sleepy bulldog waiting patiently to cross the road. And to top it all off, the chic boutique on Paris’ stylish Rue St Honoré which just about sums up the Parisian’s attitude to dogs – their very own doggie boutique, located in amongst the Prada’s, the D&G’s and the YSL. In Paris it’s surely a dog’s life.

All photos and written content are strictly the copyright of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown © 2013 and The Daily Norm. All rights are reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

The Daily Norm’s Photo of the Week – Mandarin Moonshine (daily-norm.com)
The Daily Norm’s Photo of the Week – Marseille Soap (daily-norm.com)

Nov 21

8 Comments

Announcing the details of my May 2014 solo art exhibition!

After some 6 years in the waiting since I last exhibited as a solo artist in London, I am delighted to announce that in May 2014, I will be holding the most comprehensive survey of my art ever. Concentrating on three distinct periods of my artistic output, all of which have been integral to my development as an artist since my last solo show, When (S)pain became the Norm will display paintings grouped to reflect those periods – Pain, Spain and Norms.

In Pain, I will exhibit the often traumatic but importantly cathartic set of paintings which I created during the protracted three years of recovery after the major road traffic accident in which I was involved in 2008. In Spain, I explore my works based on Spanish society, history and culture, themes which have been so significant in influencing the direction of my work over the last decade. And finally in becoming the Norm, I exhibit the works which I created upon the initiation of this very blog; the new paintings which saw me reintroduce the Norm as a prominent icon of my art.

This exciting exhibition, which will show over a hundred works ranging from large canvases to small Norm sketches will be hosted by the Strand Gallery, centrally located in John Adam Street just off the Strand in London’s Covent Garden. Bang next door to Charing Cross Station and a few hundred metres from Embankment tube station opposite the London Eye, I could barely wish for a more central gallery. And spread as it is across two floors, there should be plenty of space for my art to be shown at its very best.

The show will include…

Bricks and Stones May Break My Bones (The Show Must Go On) 2008 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, oil on canvas (130cm x 110cm)

¡Guerra! The Spanish Civil War (2009 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown)

Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (after Manet) 2012 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, Oil on canvas

And so the details – well these initial save the date flyers (above) pretty much say it all, and whether you live in London, in England, or far across the globe, I would encourage you all to make London your priority destination from 12th – 18th May 2014 for what I hope will be the most significant exhibition of my life so far.

The inside of the gallery (albeit not with my works!) (Images © Strand Gallery)

So there it is – my show is announced, and readers of The Daily Norm can expect to hear a lot more about it over the next 6 months as the show week approaches. In the meantime, please put the dates in your diary, and get yourself ready for the show of my life.

All photos and written content are strictly the copyright of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown © 2013 and The Daily Norm. All rights are reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. For more information on the work of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, head to his art website at www.delacy-brown.com

Daily Norm’s 2nd Anniversary/ 30th Birthday/ new website/ exhibition preview spectacular! (daily-norm.com)

Nov 20

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The Daily Norm’s Photo of the Week – Mandarin Moonshine

I saw this incredible moon rising up above the twinkling tower blocks of the far off Canary Wharf business district from my South London balcony last night. The moon was so incredibly large and orange that at first I thought my eyes were deceiving me – I couldn’t understand why something bearing a resemblance to a large glowing mandarin was somehow floating in amongst the nearby rooftops of Clapham and above the distant city skyline of London. But as soon as I realised what a majestic planetary sight this was, I rushed inside to grab my camera before the moon had risen to its usual full height and taken on a paler shade of grey.

It’s inevitable that the photo, taken on the maximum zoom length of my pocket camera, isn’t exactly the best quality, but I am delighted that despite the distance, you can still make out the exquisite marbling of the moon’s surface, and appreciate both the incredible colour and the amazing size of the moon when seen besides the almost toy-sized tower blocks in front of it. Amazing.

All photos and written content are strictly the copyright of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown © 2013 and The Daily Norm. All rights are reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

The Daily Norm’s Photo of the Week – Marseille Soap (daily-norm.com)
The Daily Norm’s Photo of the Week – Morning Sunrise II (daily-norm.com)
The Daily Norm’s Photo of the Week – Morning Sunrise (daily-norm.com)

Nov 19

4 Comments

It’s beginning to feel a lot like a London Christmas…

Having lived in London for some 11 years now, and been a frequent visitor even before then, I feel like a true Londoner, or at least as true as a Londoner can be in a city which lacks the small touches of friendly familiarities, of daily pleasantries and community feel which are so abundant in small towns and villages elsewhere in the UK. I know I’m a Londoner because I get ferociously impatient amongst ambling tourists; I can’t stand still on a tube escalator – preferring to walk so as to avoid waisting time; and I feel an indefatigable pride when anything big or beautiful happens in the city – which is frequently. And at no other time does that pride manifest more than at Christmas, when London’s streets become alive with the festive spirit.

While this transformation, especially around the shopping heart of the West End, may happen a little too early for some tastes, I revel in the change as soon as the evenings get dark early, yearning for nothing more than late night Christmas shopping on cold dark evenings, accompanied by a cup of sticky sweet mulled wine and the smell of roasting chestnuts wafting in the air.

This year, with the spirit of economic recovery looming large, London appears to have gone to town for the festive season with more enthusiasm than ever before. An amble through its streets this weekend with my visiting parents revealed just what an Aladdin’s cave of festive treasures London has to offer, with glorious lights strung across streets and inside shops, with ice-skating rinks popping up in front of every important building, and festive flavours easing their way onto the menus of the majority of London’s many cosy warm eateries.

The Somerset House ice rink

A stunning window display near Charing Cross

Such a cool idea – Eros turned into a snow globe

This post attempts to share glimpses of this festive wonderland which has taken the city by storm. The ultimately Christmasy ice-rink in the magnificent courtyard of Somerset House looks glorious as ever, but is accompanied this year by an equally enticing Christmas parade full of festive pop-up shops crammed with the ultimate in unique and luxury Christmas gifts. Meanwhile, down the road, Covent Garden is alive with lights and decorations aplenty, while in Piccadilly Circus, the ultimate in brilliant ideas has been realised as the famous Eros statue has been covered by a large transparent dome and pumped full of fake snow to turn it into the biggest snow globe I’ve ever seen. What a fantastic idea! You’ve also got to love the tree at St Pancras International, where visitors from the continent will be welcomed to London by the ultimate in English elegance – a tree decorated with hampers from the Queen’s grocer, Fortnum and Mason’s. A tree after my own heart.

: Abundant decorations in Liberty’s

: The Covent Garden Tree

: Gingerbread men at the Courtauld

: The Somerset House ice rink

: Covent Garden’s larger than life rudolf

: A tree after my own heart – Fortnum’s Hampers dress a tree at St Pancras International

: Such a cool idea – Eros turned into a snow globe

: Liberty’s stunning Christmas shop, strung with fairy lights

: A gigantic candelabra fills Fortnum and Mason

: My Mummy in Somerset House Christmas arcade

: Covent Garden lights

: Tree at Somerset House

: A stunning window display near Charing Cross

: The Covent Garden tree

: A pop-up shop at Somerset House

It’s that time of the year when the Christmas spirit is really starting to creep in… and as these photos show, you would have to be made of stone to escape the first waves of festive happiness washing over London right now. Bring it on.

All photos and written content are strictly the copyright of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown © 2013 and The Daily Norm. All rights are reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

Nov 18

6 Comments

Daily Norm’s 2nd Anniversary/ 30th Birthday/ new website/ exhibition preview spectacular!

Christmas may be merely 5 weeks away, but its been all about a mighty great November for me. Not only have I been celebrating the relaunch of my official art website this month, but I have also been busy organising the first solo gallery showing of my artwork in 6 years, which will make its debut in London in the Spring of next year – more details will follow soon. Not only that, but I am still reeling from the shock of turning 30 earlier this year, but nevertheless still determined to celebrate it for as long as the year goes on. And finally, this month (and in fact the 14th November last week) marks the two year birthday of The Daily Norm!

From its very humble beginnings, this blog has now been freshly pressed 3 times, gained 2,332 followers, had 301,364 total views and even received 2,527 comments. And statistics aside, it has just been a joy from beginning to end – an outlet for my creativity; a mirror on my soul, and a magnificent far-reaching channel through which my thoughts and experiences can be shared with the world. So a huge thank you just has to go to everyone who has supported my blog all of this time. I feel incredibly honoured that you take the time to share just a little of my life with me.

My paintings on show at the Benugo Drawing Room private cocktail bar, last Friday

So how best to celebrate all of these marked feats of November jubilation? Why, to throw a private party of course! Yep, last Friday night, the best and beautiful of my inner circle – both friends and colleagues alike – gathered in their glad rags to belatedly celebrate my birthday, mark the relaunch of my website, reflect on the success of The Daily Norm, and look forward, in equal measure, to the prospect of my solo art exhibition next Spring. And in celebrating the latter aspect, what better way to anticipate what I hope will be the art show of the 2014 Spring season than to kick things off with a warm up preview of some of my latest works!

So for all those friends of mine rocking up at the British Film Institute’s secret cocktail bar within its main Benugo bar last friday evening, they were treated to an impromptu display of some 20 of my works, including a selection of my latest Compositions series, a few of my Norm originals including my Norm take on Manet’s Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe and Flamenco Norm, and also a few examples of my more contemplative works, such as Pink Bf, Return Journey and Pupillage.

The evening was a fantastic success, a wonderful opportunity for some of my latest colourful paintings and more subdued, delicate etchings to benefit from an outing to London’s cultural South Bank centre, and a fine way to touch base with my ever faithful friends, many of whom I have not seen for months, if not years. And I sold 3 more paintings to boot – which can’t be bad!

Sadly, as far as recording this magnificent event goes, I can only show you photos taken as the paintings went out, but before the people came in. No sooner had the first friend arrived than I was occupied talking to my guests all evening – and my well intentioned desire to record the evening through photos got quite lost in the revelry. But that is surely a sign of a good party.

Stay tuned, as ever, into The Daily Norm for exclusive details of my May 2014 art exhibition – coming soon!

And in the meantime another huge thanks to all those who have supported me and my blog for the two years of its happy existence. Here’s to the next!

Nov 15

6 Comments

Printmaking Progress IV – La Flamenca (copper etching)

Regular readers of The Daily Norm will know that I have been dabbling in printmaking in recent months, and in particular etching, inspired by the superb results achieved in the medium by the likes of Goya, Picasso and Lucian Freud. Well having dappled a little in zinc plates (I hesitate to say “mastered” – as my recent disaster when aquatinting a zinc plate was to prove), I decided to move onto a copper plate, which, because of its durability, is the optimum plate to use for a bigger print edition.

Departing from the Norms who feature on my previous etchings, I decided to follow my familiar passion for Spain, and flamenco, recycling the idea I had for a fragmented dancer in Composition No. 8, and this time etching a flamenco dancer with a free-flowing fluid dress making for the major attraction of the plate. In terms of process, the image itself did not involve a whole lot of etching. Rather, the detail came with the aquatinting and soft-ground applied thereafter. Once the initial dancer image was etched into the plate, I then took a benday dot stencil, the likes of which would have been used by Roy Lichtenstein, and applied a series of polka dots across the background of my plate, emulating the popular pattern of flamenco dresses, and adding variety of tone by dipping in acid for different lengths of time.

La Flamenca (copper etching on paper) © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, 2013

In the lighter areas of the background (kept light through giving them less exposure to acid) I applied an intricate lace pattern using the soft-ground technique. This basically involves painting the plate with a protective liquid ground which is left wet. A piece of lace is then applied on top and the plate sent through the print press. This presses the lace into the soft ground, lifting it off the plate and leaving an impression of the lace in the ground, which is then etched into the metal when exposed to acid. I adore the result, creating a background which now includes both the lace and polka dots so characteristic of flamenco.

The final step then was to print my plate – I did so with a black ink mixed with a warming red to give a real flamenco flavour. I’m really very pleased with the result, so much so that I have decided to make this print a larger edition of 50.

The initial line etching

Applying the dots onto aquatint

Applying a lace softground

Stopping out the figure before final acid dip

The finished plate

The finished print

If you would like to buy one of my limited edition prints, they’re available now – in my Etsy store. See you there!

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. For more information on the work of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, head to his art website at www.delacy-brown.com

Printmaking Progress III – Editioning El Marinero (daily-norm.com)

Nov 14

6 Comments

The Daily Norm’s Photo of the Week – Marseille Soap

We’re big fans of liquid soap in my household. It’s altogether more convenient, tidier, and often more aesthetically pleasing. It also comes in a progressively more varied range of sweetly smelling brands, some so eye-poppingly expensive that they make hand soap the latest in luxury living. While I don’t usually go for the old fashioned bar of soap therefore, I must admit to having become smitten with the authentic square soaps characteristic of the Marseille region when I was in Provence during the summer. From deciding against buying such soaps quite vociferously at the beginning of the trip, my will was slowly worn down as we went from place to place, and boutique to boutique, charmed by the wafting homely perfumed smell of these traditional Provençal soaps in all their varying shapes and colours.

So when in Saint-Remy-de-Provence we came across a sophisticated little boutique (ironically, run by an Englishman) selling Marseille soaps which were not only traditional, but also charmingly misshapen so as to give them a classic, handmade look, I was sold, and, repenting for my former reticence to buy, spent a good wad of Euros on a variety of those soaps of all different shapes and sizes.

Although we are using one such of the smaller soaps (and keeping the mess at bay in a purpose-made little concrete soap dish bought from the same place), the main reason for buying the soaps was for their decorational value. For in a bathroom like ours which is characterised by its square window, square sink and square taps, the soaps were an obvious attraction.

So for this week’s Daily Norm photo of the week, I thought I would share with you a rather chic photo of my Saint-Remy soaps, piled up elegantly on the square windowsill of my square bathroom window. Despite being so traditional in the method of their creation, these soaps look startlingly contemporary in this modern bathroom setting, their varying shades of creamy ochre contrasting effectively against the deep grey of my bathroom tiles. A perfect example of when traditional Mediterranean charm meets contemporary urban minimalism, but somehow the two fuse so inexorably well together.

All photos and written content are strictly the copyright of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown © 2013 and The Daily Norm. All rights are reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.