Abstract | The Daily Norm

Sep 29

Savon Marseillais

You simply can’t miss the soap of Marseille. Through the urban smog and the strong pervasive smell of the sea penetrates the comforting scent of clean, creamy soap in various scents of lavender, verbena, orange blossom and rose. Marseille is famous for its soap. Whether it be the Savon de Bonne Mere, or the eponymous Savon de Marseille chic liquid brand by Campaigne de Provence, soap is one of the region’s strongest exports, and the very best way to bring the memory-inspiring perfumes of the Riviera into your home. Perhaps the most impressive sight in Marseille and the surrounding towns is a shop loaded, floor to ceiling, with the famous cubes of Marseille soap. This is when the variety of dazzling scents and colours can be appreciated to their full, and it was this sight which was triggered again in my mind when I saw the pastel coloured houses of nearby Cassis: Suddenly the two themes combined, and a painting was born.

Savon Marseillais (©Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, 2017 – acrylic on canvas)

This is the result: a canvas which has Marseille soap at its heart and dictating its colour palette, with the rich olive soap which is one of the most famous varieties dominating. Featuring too are the multi-coloured houses of Cassis, together with the railway bridges of L’Estaque, and the striped beach paraphernalia which has come to characterise the Riviera. All in all, this is a painting which represents our time in Marseille and its environs, a time when we munched on local sardines, enjoyed the sea and mountain scenery, and best of all things, smelt and indeed lathered up using the local Savon Marseillais.

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2017. 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. For more information on the artwork of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, visit http://www.delacybrown.com

Sep 12

Memories of Marrakech, in Abstract

It seems incredible that the summer is now drawing to its close. Why is it that time always goes so fast in the summer, yet the winter always seems to be an interminable torture without end? Yet the excitement with which this last summer season started infects me still, and I remember with what feverish anticipation we headed to the wild planes of Africa for the first time in our lives, to visit the Moroccan city of Marrakech.

In all the bustle of the new summer season, I barely had time to reflect upon the mesmerising pink tones of a city so unlike others I have visited previously. I created a few small art works, but soon my mind was focused towards Sicily. Amongst them, I painted this small study of the terracotta hued rooftops of Marrakech – a rather traditional work, but capturing something of the essence of that hodgepodge of a city. Yet when I looked upon the work the other day, sitting as it does on my bookshelf, I felt incomplete. This work, like the Windsor landscape and abstract coupling I have just completed, needed its abstract counterpart. And that is exactly what I set out to create.

Memories of Marrakech (©Nicholas de Lacy-Brown 2017, acrylic on canvas)

Featuring the same very Moroccan palette of pinks, blues and earthy tones, this abstract seeks to reinterpret my earlier rooftop study, injecting a whimsicality into the composition. In reimagining this work, I was also able to layer the abstract with double meanings. The round arc of a satellite dish also resembles, for example, the crescent and star which is the design of many an Arabic flag, while another dish is placed so as to recall the dome of a mosque.

Abstraction, as a concept, intends to remove something of the figurative and pictorial, at least from its normal compositional placement, if not from the canvas altogether. What interests me about this piece is its clear abstract quality, while retaining an evident illustrative quality of both Morocco and Marrakech. For me, that makes it the perfect souvenir of that fantastically unique city.

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2017. 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. For more information on the artwork of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, visit http://www.delacybrown.com

Sep 9

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A Windsor Weekend, Part VI: The Abstract

There is often too much pressure on artists to stick to one particular style. Collectors like the work of an artist to be immediately identifiable – too much wavering from that course is never a good thing, they say. And while I suppose there is something inherently identifiable about the way an artist applies his or her brush to canvas, each is capable of doing very different things. Look at Gerhard Richter for example. He would paint vast stark abstracts one minute, and sumptuously emotional portraits the next. And good on him. For I am an artist who doesn’t like to stick to the same narrow path. As much as I have enjoyed painting more abstract scenes of late, I have also enjoyed reverting to the traditional.

Having said all of this, two very divergent painting styles needn’t be kept apart. From each traditional painting, I believe there is an abstract interpretation just waiting to emerge. And that is just what I did when I finished my traditional landscape of Windsor: I set about paintings it companion in abstract.

Windsor Abstract (©Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, 2017 – acrylic on canvas)

So what you see here is a work which is created from the same natural palette of browns, greens and blues as used in my landscape, and which is based upon a simplified version of the same shapes of trees and paths, strata and clouds, but all set into a very jumbled abstractive composition. Its much the same as my abstract interpretation of Las Meninas by Velazquez, except this time I am interpreting my own work.

I’m not sure I can say which of my Windsor works I prefer – this or the traditional. I believe there is a place for both. And together, they are even better.

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2017. 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. For more information on the artwork of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, visit http://www.delacybrown.com

Apr 28

Painting my travels: Castagneto Carducci

Painting is slowly re-entering my life. It’s been a long few months without it. As many an artist will tell you, it’s difficult to find inspiration when life is unstable, and an international move, a new London job, plus a mammoth redecoration project has done few favours in terms of my artistic production. But how could I not be inspired by my recent venture to Tuscany? The photos I have been sharing over the last couple of weeks go far in demonstrating just what kind of a place it is. As soon as I awoke on the first sunny day, the birdsong, fresh air and sunrays combined to fill my mind afresh with hypothetical paintings. And this one is the first to result from that round of preliminary creative ideas.

My 2016 collection, interpretative abstract, instigated a new abstract language in my art, one which has followed through to subsequent creative projects, and even the way I choose to capture landscapes in my photography. This meant that as I wandered the towns of Tuscany, I saw the sunlit streets not as townscapes, but as a series of abstract compositions. I was aided in this interpretation by the stark contrast between shadow and light, often casting distinct geometric patterns and lines across monotone building walls, and likewise by the nature of Tuscan streets which are inherently narrow resulting in a more dynamic composition of vertical and horizontal planes.

Castagneto Carducci #1 (2017 ©Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, watercolour and gouache on paper)

The result is this painting, entitled simply Castagneto Carducci #1, after the town which inspired it and which was featured on Wednesday’s Daily Norm. It uses watercolour, which is not a medium I utilise often, but whose transparency leant a very authentic depth to the depiction of the texture of Tuscan walls. But it also uses gouache in creating flatter colour planes, and the combination of media, together with an angular geometric finish to street-inspired constructs, forms a landscape which is at the same time an abstract composition.

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2017. 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. For more information on the artwork of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, visit http://www.delacybrown.com

Jun 3

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The Wrestlers (after Courbet)

I adore art, especially the masterpieces of old, and I spend a lot of my time gazing in admiration at the works of the old masters and the more recently celebrated artists of the 20th century. However, of all the works I see, only a few inspire me to recreate the work in my own way. Velázquez´s Las Meninas, Titian’s Bacchus and Ariadne and Rubens’ Descent from the Cross are three such works which have recently driven me to paint the old masterpieces afresh, and a few weeks ago, another chance encounter had a similar effect.

It was on Instagram in fact that I stumbled across this most recent inspiration – a work by the French master, Gustave Courbet, The Wrestlers – which the instagram user had also discovered for the first time. Painted in 1853, in the typical realist style for which Courbet was best known, and which saw him break away from the classical genre style of painting which was predominant in the mid-19th century, the work is not one I have seen before, perhaps because it is housed in the Fine Arts Museum in Budapest. But as soon as I saw it on the screen of my iPhone, I was struck by the incredible energy of the wrestlers, and the brilliant realism of their taught muscles, interlinked as they strain and struggle against each other – a fantastically visceral image in contrast with the refined crowds watching them from civilised stands in the background.

The Wrestlers (after Courbet), 2016 ©Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, acrylic on canvas

It didn’t take long for my own version of the image to form in my head, following my new interpretative abstract style with which to give the work a new treatment. I have included some realistic elements myself, in homage to Courbet, but for the most part my reinterpretation is highly abstracted, not least the central figures themselves. This was by far the most difficult element to complete, and it took me some 20+ attempts before I was happy with the final abstract form. Unsure whether to separate the figures, or paint them as one, I latterly settled on a unified form, since the wrestlers in Courbet’s original are so obviously, almost erotically combined into a single star-like figure. The cadmium red colour however was clear as soon as I saw, around the same time as discovering the Courbet work, a photo of a brilliant red Alexander Calder mobile against a green grassy background. I knew from that moment that my wrestlers had to be red, creating a central contrast which is key to the balance of the painting. And so it was born.

Gustave_Courbet_-_The_Wrestlers_-_WGA5462

The Wrestlers (1853) by Gustave Courbet (Fine Arts Museum, Budapest)

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2016. 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. For more information on the work of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, head to his art website at www.delacybrown.com

May 23

Shakespeare 400: Richard III

It probably will not have escaped your notice (particularly if you live in the UK) that this year marks 400 years since the death of Britain’s most famous ever playwright and poet, William Shakespeare. And across the country and beyond there has been something of a resurgence of interest in his work. This, together with the coincided discovery of a Shakespearian theatre troupe out here in Mallorca aroused my own Bard reawakening, not least because I have a little anniversary all of my own – some 20 years since I painted, at the tender age of 13, my first ever substantial collection of paintings which just happened to be a scene from every one of Shakespeare’s 37 plays.

So with one thing leading to another, it wasn’t long before I felt old inspirations stir up, and the decision to once again tackle Shakespeare as an inspiration for my art took hold.

Richard III (2016 ©Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, acrylic on canvas)

First off the rack is this painting of one of the Bard’s history plays, Richard III. Painted in my new style, interpretative abstraction, the work appears simple but in fact represents the story of Richard III in three clear aspects. First, the three piles of what one could mistake for bricks or books represents, at the painting’s most simplistic visual level, the “III” of Richard in roman numerals. The second meaning is the allusion to the famous scene whereby the Duchess of York (Richard’s mother), Queen Elizabeth (his dead brother’s wife) and Queen Margaret (the previously exiled wife of the former King Henry VI) meet together and bemoan and curse the Machiavellian rise of Richard III to power.

That rise is finally, and most importantly represented by the same three pillars of blocks, each of which depict an important part of the story: The central column is the staircase which tracks Richard’s bloody ascent through the rungs of power to be King, with the slash of the golden crown shining boldly at the top; the column on the right is the Tower of London and in it the two yellow cubes are the two blond princes, the true heirs to the throne who Richard famously kills in the tower in order to clear his path to the crown; and the column on the left, with its overlapping grey forms like medieval armour, represents the Battle of Bosworth at which Richard was finally defeated.

It seems remarkable that some 20 years have passed since I painted my teenage Shakespeare collection, especially now as I rediscover the same excitement which his plays engendered in me all those years ago. Now I’m looking forward to the challenge of finding them again, and painting them afresh (albeit perhaps not all 37…!).

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2016. 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. For more information on the work of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, head to his art website at www.delacybrown.com

Apr 11

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Interpretative Abstract: Cala Sant Vicenç

After some months now of pursuing a new artistic style, I think I’ve finally hit upon a way to describe it. In cleansing my forms and decluttering my method of expression, there is something decidedly abstract about my new work. But by its nature, painting the abstract is to strip an image of almost any recognisable qualities, and instead to create something entirely without figuration. My paintings do not do that – more often than not they aim to reinterpret something recognisably visual, whether it be an famous painting from the history of art, or an Easter parade. Yet those interpretations are in many ways decidedly abstract – simplistic, geometric. And therefore I think that the best way to describe them would be to call them Interpretative Abstracts. That way, at least, I feel I am on my way to understanding what it is I am setting out to create.

Interpretative Abstract: Cala Sant Vicenç (2016 ©Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, acrylic on canvas)

This week I am featuring the newest work off my easel, in which I have attempted to extend my new interpretative abstract style to the simple landscape. Taking one of the most generic views in Mallorca, the jagged rocks of the Cala Sant Vicenç, and simplifying every aspect of the landscape, the result is a painting which is at once a place, and at the same time a simple composition.

Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2016. 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. For more information on the work of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, head to his art website at www.delacybrown.com

Apr 1

Soller: First touch of summer

Although, as I write, some clouds have descended over Mallorca, this moment is the first in a long time when the sun has not shone. And while the sunshine in March often came accompanied by a chilly wind, reminding of winter, last weekend an intensity of heat seemed to welcome in the first touch of summer.

The moment I really felt it was when I was sitting with my family at a sunny table on the Port of Soller. As sun rays bounced across the water of that tranquil marina, through my glass of chilled white wine and onto my face, I became truly entranced by the elysium of summer. Around me, I was enveloped by one of the most beautiful harbours in Mallorca – a natural almost 360 degree inlet ringed by spectacular mountains and packed with a few rows of little white washed houses which to me recall the French Riviera.

It was in that moment that this painting clarified as a mental vision in my mind. I jumped up, asked the waitress for a pen and paper, and on the back of a till receipt made a sketch. A few days later the painting is done. Its key is its simplicity of composition, which allows the viewer the space to breath and reflect on a work filled with the soft colours of the Mediterranean, and to think of their own encounters with this most wonderful part of the world, when the sun first touched them after a long dull winter…

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2016. 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. For more information on the work of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, head to his art website at www.delacybrown.com

Feb 19

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Las Meninas: Third Interpretative Exercise

I’m having an artistic revolution, and my head is spinning with shapes and colours. Ever since my last encounter with Velazquez’s Las Meninas last November, a seed has been sewn and new buds of Spring are rapidly taking shape as they shoot forth from my imagination to the tip of my paintbrush.

The latest result of this creative flowering is this, the third in my own Las Meninas exercise, each canvas taking a new approach to painting one step further. While in the second of the series, I reduced the famous figures of Velazquez’s work into simplified abstract forms, but maintained the familiar composition, in this third experiment, I have stripped the painting almost entirely of its compositional values, maintaining only the basic three dimensional construct of the room. As for the remainder, all of the shapes which can be found in the second painting are now displaced, recoloured and fragmented, distributed in an energetic whirl of abstracted movement which is entirely free in its composition.

Had I come across a work such as this in an art gallery, I may have assumed that it was easy to paint. Yet as this painting taught me, it was far from simple. The delicacy with which a composition of this nature needs to be approached, not just technically (there are an awful lot of straight lines) but also compositionally, cannot be underestimated. I would spend long periods staring at the painting, trying to work out where the next shape should be placed, knowing that one incorrect angle or placement could throw out the entire energy of the piece, reducing the painting into something mediocre, devoid of its own story.

As it is, and with a few wrong turns rectified along the way, I am delighted with the final composition as it turns out. For me it is a composition rejuvenated, a painting which appears to burst before your eyes. And most importantly it retains, for me, some of the key ingredients of Las Meninas, albeit presenting them in an entirely different way.

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2016. 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. For more information on the work of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, head to his art website at www.delacybrown.com

Feb 11

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Las Meninas: Second Interpretative Exercise

There are some art exhibitions that you go to that simply have the capacity to strike deep. Many shows are pleasing, others interesting, but then there are those which you remember for ever. I’ll never forget for example Frida Kahlo or Henri Rousseau at Tate Modern, Tamara de Lempicka at the Royal Academy, Dali at the Centre Pompidou or Da Vinci at the National Gallery London. Now to that list I add the Kandinsky retrospective at CentroCentro in Madrid, not because it was any better than the Kandinsky I saw many years before at Tate, but simply because the combination of time and energy and who know’s what combined to leave me utterly inspired.

When, the next day, I walked into the Prado and saw Velázquez’s Las Meninas once again, something shifted in my head, and I left an artist converted.

I started my reinterpretations of Las Meninas shortly after the whirl of the Christmas season was over, and my first, Las Meninas (In Our Time) I shared with you a few weeks ago. But my new project was far from over, and this painting, shared today, was the one which leapt into life before my eyes that day in the Prado Gallery when Kandinsky was still very much on my mind.

Las Meninas: Second Interpretative Exercise borrows from Velázquez’s composition, but otherwise radically simplifies the forms of his dramatic personæ, and swaps the dark browns and neutral shades of his painting with a vibrant almost pop-art palette. The result is an image which pleases me incredibly. It is at once abstract but recognisable, tidy but surreal. I had great fun in reimagining each piece of the painting – for example painting the dog’s stretched out arm as a bone, and the nun’s head like a piece of sushi – and best of all, I know that this is only the beginning. Abstraction and simplified forms are spinning around my head. Ideas are overflowing, and I can’t sit still for a need to paint.

It’s why I’ll always remember that Kandinsky show, because it switched on a light in my head which has long remained dormant.

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2016. 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. For more information on the work of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, head to his art website at www.delacybrown.com