Nicholas De Lacy-Brown | The Daily Norm

Feb 19

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.

Las Meninas: Third Interpretative Exercise (2016 ©Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, acrylic on canvas)

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

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

Feb 1

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Lunch in the Café Eiles (Vienna Muse)

There are times in life when a single moment gains more clarity than the thousand moments before and after; when the significant size of a city space shrinks in the coincidence of two people meeting again and again, quite unplanned, as though destiny had it all preemptively narrated. Such were the moments in Vienna when I, previously untouched by the poetic force of a female muse, found myself repeatedly captivated by a mysterious, delicate girl.

It was a fascination which might not have been so fortified were it not for the repetition of the first encounter. I first saw my muse in the elegant cafeteria of the Kunsthistoriches Museum. Dominik and I had both marked her out, quite independently of one another. We were struck by the purity of her face, quite devoid of artificial make up but alive with a natural innocence, and by her clothing which was different. Her outfit looked almost home-made, but betrayed a feminine elegance in each of its carefully combined components.

I might not have thought of her again, had it not been for the coincidence of a second encounter the following day, some kilometres away on the other side of Vienna, in the Café Eiles. Unable to believe the coincidence of quite independently finding the same girl who had so captivated me in the art museum the day before, my interest peaked and I found myself utterly enraptured by this girl. Again she betrayed characteristic elegance as she went about sipping a tea while writing what looked like a journal, and knitting a rather complex scarf.

Lunch at the Café Eiles (Vienna Muse) (2016 ©Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, gouache on paper)

By this point I knew that the girl was becoming something of an inspiration to me, and like paparazzi I grabbed for my camera, desperate to capture the sight of this girl who I was sure I would never see again. It’s just that the following day a third encounter, in the same café, occurred. No longer a coincidence of place, but of timing. Another encounter which appeared to defy chance and confirmed to me that the paths of this girl and I were meant to cross. That she was my muse and that I must paint her.

As soon as I saw my muse on that second encounter this painting formed in my head. Now I have created it, complete with the lunch we ate in the cosy Café Eiles as I sat, captivated by my muse, I feel somehow satisfied that my muse has been set down on paper. But I can’t help but feel sad that even now, after three coincidental encounters I know nothing more about the girl who ensnared me. Neither her name, nor her voice, nor even a single thing about her. I just know that to me she was very special. Maybe one day we’ll meet again.

Lunch at the Café Eiles (Vienna Muse) detail, 2016 ©Nicholas de Lacy-Brown

© 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

Jan 18

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Interpretation No. 19: Venice, the Dorsoduro from above

It’s hard to believe that my series of landscape interpretations are now entering their third year. Started back in Positano on the Amalfi Coast when I was inspired by the cubic contrast of urban development against rugged natural scenery, the collection has morphed and developed, now reaching its 19th in number. While traditional landscape painting seems to be too often looked down on by the so called “experts” in today’s contemporary art world, these simplified landscapes allow me the opportunity to relive a landscape, to simplify it into the basic forms which make the view so beautiful, and most importantly to relax and enjoy the process of creation.

As my little Venice seasons comes to an end here on The Daily Norm, and we travel together, to cities further afield, there could have been no more appropriate final curtain to the collection than to share this, my latest in the interpretations series. Inspired by the stunning views over the city which I photographed from the top of St Mark’s campanile and shared on The Daily Norm last week, this view for me was compositionally just too tempting not to paint.

Interpretation No. 19: Venice, the Dorsoduro from above (2016 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, gouache on paper)

With its waves of terracotta rooftops covering Venetian red, cream and ochre buildings, all leading to the magnificence of the church of Santa Maria della Salute at its centre, and with its intersection of creamy turquoise canals and a view of the Giudecca island in the foggy distance, this is a view of the Dorsoduro region at its best. And it makes for a fine addition to the urban wing (Paris, London & Palma and counting…) of my continuing collection gouache landscapes.

© 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

Jan 13

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Las Meninas (In Our Time)

I’m feeling terribly pleased with myself. It’s only the second week of January in a fresh new year, and already I have ticked a new year’s resolution to give more time to my art. For asides from a number of projects started and now pending completion, one new canvas has already left my easel as a finished piece: Las Meninas (In Our Time).

Anyone who is familiar with the great masterpieces of art history will probably recognise the setting of this painting. It is of course based almost exactly on Diego Velázquez’s best-known 1656 work, Las Meninas. And yet this is no copy. Rather it is a statement; a narrative, about what was, and what is. For in my Las Meninas, Velázquez’s room is eerily empty. There is no princess glowing in the light, nor the maids whose assistance to her majesty gives the painting its title. Gone too is the court jester, the dwarf, and the King and Queen in the background. Even Velázquez himself is nowhere to be seen. And it’s not just the figures who are missing: here even the art on the wall is blank and simplified, reduced down to blocks of colour in a room stripped of its majesty. At all that is left behind is a lone object: a ceramic figurine with a price tag, straight out of a souvenir shop.

Las Meninas (In Our Time) 2016 ©Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, acrylic on canvas

I was inspired to paint this work back in November when I visited Velázquez’s great work, for the umpteenth time, in Madrid’s Prado Gallery. Two things struck me as I left the gallery: First, how sadly different are the richly executed wonderfully fine art works that fill the Prado from the art which so called “contemporary artists” seem to produce today. Is our time, I wondered, a time that will ever be noteworthy in the future books of art history? And second, I was struck by the degree to which consumerism and commercialisation dominates today’s imagination. The extent to which the demands of mass production and imitation cause a unique masterpiece like Las Meninas to be replicated in every conceivable form, from key rings, magnets, ceramic figures, cuddly figures, to cushions, aprons, tshirts, and mobile phone cases.

Velázquez’s original masterpiece

So in recreating Las Meninas for our time, my room is emptied of the royal sumptuousness of the past. The figures of history have retreated, and the fine art that adorned the walls is no more. The time of imperial splendour is long forgotten, and all that remains at the room’s centre is the tacky souvenir which commercialises the past; a glossy gift for a present generation so often devoid of the imagination to create unique splendour anew.

© 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

Jan 6

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My travel sketchbook: Canal View, Venice

It seems like a longtime has passed since the halcyon days of summer were upon us, and indeed it was. For the entire season of autumn has passed since then, and the leaves of the summer’s luscious green branches have all but fallen. And yet that was the last time I opened my travel sketchbook, at least until Venice came.

For Venice is a renowned artist’s paradise, a utopia whose every turn and corner provides a sensational new detail to inspire a creator’s hand. My trip this Christmas past was sadly short (but sweet), and neither the duration nor the temperatures allowed for me to spend much time sitting in one of the city’s many stunning squares or canal sides sketching all of the beauty which was before me. But there was time enough to capture this view, especially since it was the vista we were lucky enough to enjoy from our hotel bedroom. And thus while we rested from the day’s adventures, I sketched. And this is the result.

Canal view, Venice (2015 ©Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, pen on paper)

© 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

Dec 27

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2015: Looking back at my year’s work

Each year I grow more and more frustrated that time seems to pass so quickly with so very little artwork done. I suppose its only natural for an artist, when new ideas and burning creativity consumes from within desperate to find its manifestation on canvas, or paper. And as the years go on, and time seems to be ticking closer towards the great unknown, that frustration only grows deeper.

And yet, as I look back upon the last year’s work, I cannot say that the year was unproductive. On the contrary, a glimpse over my creative output demonstrates a fair breadth of artistic endeavours, and shows that besides the obvious application of time spent enjoying the incredible Mediterranean surroundings in which I am now living, I also applied myself to expressing those visions in a concrete illustrated form.

Interpretations

Chief among my works for 2015 have been gouaches painted on paper. Perfect for their ease of use and the speed of their execution, I painted more gouache than any other paintings because they gave me moments of relaxation in between the pressures of work, and enabled me to quickly express my reaction to a new landscape or experience without lingering for months on a forever unfinished canvas.

Interpretation No. 13 – Ibiza (2015 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, gouache on paper)

Interpretation No. 14 , Deia (2015 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, gouache on paper)

Interpretation No. 15 – Malaga (2015 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, gouache on paper)

Interpretation No. 16: From La Rive Gauche (2015, © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, gouache on paper)

Interpretation No. 17 – Autumn light on La Rambla (2015 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, gouache on paper)

Interpretation No.18: London (2015, Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, gouache on paper)

Ocho Balcones

Asides from adding new interpreted landscapes to my Interpretations collection, I also created a new collection of portrait-format gouaches painted of the eight views enjoyed from the eight balconies of our Palma old town apartment. And it’s a good job I did, for no sooner had the collection been completed, we moved out!

Ocho Balcones (No.1): From the bedroom

Ocho Balcones No. 2: Cables in the Calle (2015 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, gouache on paper)

Ocho Balcones No. 3: KItchen Contrast (2015 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, gouache on paper)

Ocho Balcones No.4: The Longest View (2015 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, gouache on paper)

Ocho Balcones, No.5: The Summer Bathroom (2015 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, gouache on paper)

Ocho Balcones No.6: Angled Perspective (2015 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, gouache on paper)

Ocho Balcones No. 7: Dominik’s Office (2015 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, gouache on paper)

Ocho Balcones VIII: The Artist’s Studio (2015 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, gouache on paper)

The Honeymoon Suite

Of course my wedding and the honeymoon which followed were not only the central point of the year, but provided their own inspiration, not least at La Colombe d’Or hotel, where we were lucky enough to dine surrounded by original works by the likes of Leger, Braque and Picasso, and sunbathe under the wings of an Alexander Calder mobile. With only my small box of gouaches with me, I set about painting each of the rooms of the three hotels we stayed in, as well as the stunning leafy garden of the Colombe.

Honeymoon Suite I: Bedroom at La Colombe d’Or (2015 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, gouache on paper)

Honeymoon Suite II: Bedroom in the Chateau de Cagnard (2015 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, gouache on paper)

The Honeymoon Suite 3: Bedroom at the Arai Barcelona

Breakfast at La Colombe d’Or (2015 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, gouache on paper)

Commissions

It was also a good year for Commissions, and apart from the wide variety of works created for my employer, a few outside commissions also enabled me to paint these works which made it into the press across Mallorca and beyond.

Antiguedades (2015 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, gouache on paper)

Autumn in Paris (2015 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, gouache on paper)

Ovejas en Orient (2015 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, gouache on paper)

My travel sketchbook

Taking a break from all the colour, 2015 was also a bumper year for my travel sketchbook. Started the year before, it is now almost full to the bursting with sketches completed this year including landscapes from across Mallorca, the French Riviera, Ibiza and Marbella.

: Ibiza Town (2015 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, pen on paper)

: The Tramuntana viewed from Fornalutx (2015 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, pen on paper)

: The beach at Banyalbufar (2015 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, pen and ink on paper)

The Oil Paintings

And finally to what, perhaps, I do best – the mighty projects on canvas; oil paintings each of which take weeks if not months to complete, but whose realisation is all the more fulfilling because of the time spent. I painted very few completed works on canvas this year, but those which reached the finish line were mainly Mallorca based landscapes, my ultimate challenge being the 1.5m landscape of the Bay of Palma. A true achievement for the year 2015.

Orient (2015 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, oil on canvas)

Mallorca Landscape (Chiringuitos) (2015 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, oil on canvas)

An Englishman in Andalucia (2015 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, oil on canvas)

The Bay of Palma (2015 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, gouache on paper)

And now, as I look forwards, with three large paintings already on the go, and a whole new sketchbook ready to be filled, I cannot wait to see what the next year of creativity will bring.

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2015. 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

Dec 18

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Interpretation No. 18: London

I suppose it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. It took my departure from London after 12 years of living there to recognise that the city, while not consistently beautiful, still has a certain amount of inspirational magic to it. When I lived there I would always profess the need to travel to the Mediterranean and beyond in order to find artistic inspiration. When asked whether I ever painted London, I looked at people as though they were mad: paint this city? But it’s just a pool of grey, I would say.

Yet when I visited the city afresh at the beginning of last week, and sat in the glass fronted restaurant on the 6th floor of Tate Modern on Bankside, I could not help but stare in wonderment at the beauty of the cityscape before me, as I realised that London is much more than 50 shades of grey. Indeed, with the greeny shades of the River Thames, the plethora of glass skyscrapers and old baroque and gothic churches and the terracotta hues of many of the brick buildings, London is a metropolis full of contrasting colours.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder. It’s a cliché but it’s true. And as soon as I returned from the city, I started work on this latest of my Interpretations series. A simplified but devoted landscape of a city which is beautiful after all.

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2015. 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

Nov 6

Norms in the Caves of Drach

Legend has it that the Norms have lived on the earth for many millions of years, although over that time, it is thought that their bean-like gelatinous form has gradually morphed and evolved. In fact some allege that these famous white blobs once started off as a mere circular structure, although the biological reasoning behind this theory is heavily disputed.

Nonetheless, there is nothing that Norms like to do more (well apart from sip on a steaming cup of hot white chocolate perhaps) than reconnecting with their heritage, and owing to their tremendously long history, this connection can be no better realised than in a good set of caves, themselves the products of millions of years slow limestone dripping.

Norms in the Caves of Drach (2015 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, pen and ink on paper)

It is no wonder then that on a recent trip to the Mediterranean island of Mallorca, the Norms were to be found happily visiting the famous Cuevas of Drach; gazing up in wonder at the multiple surreal forms created by the stalactites, and floating, awestruck, across the crystal clear lake, gazing at their milky reflection while a boat full of Norm musicians serenaded them across the water.

You could say they took to it like a Norm to water…,

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2015. 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.delacybrown.com

Oct 19

An Englishman in Andalucia

Dark, broody, flames flickering through a purple and chocolate brown backdrop…a portrait on the wall is alive. Dressed in the guise of a toreador, it is my self-portrait, part alarmed, part anxious, as I consider conflict in my life… the ever omnipresent concerns which come of big changes and repercussive decisions, a conflict which is played out in reflection in a Spanish bull ring; the steady workmanship which comes of intricately embroidering the matador’s traje de luz being the catalyst of the conflict, as blood pours from the pin which pierces at the heart of the bull.

Set in the context of Andalucia, where I was when I painted the piece, this is the work of An Englishman in Andalucia… when my displacement in Marbella triggered a time of contemplation, when internal thoughts just poured onto the canvas. In the midsts of expressing my preoccupation of the time, I was inspired to utilise the Spanish corrida as my protagonist, having passed a bullfighting poster on my way to the beach. From that second onwards, this painting sprang into mind as I lay on the beach, and that afternoon I rushed home to start work on the piece.

It is a painting which deals with the contrasts and conflicts which are always present in my life. The fact of being English and living in Spain, the repercussions of pursuing a creative career which inevitably meant the sacrifice of another. It is a brooding contemplative piece, but for me its creation made for a satisfying process. And in so far as its motifs are therefore consequently dark, the effect of painting it was to fill my mind with clarity and light.

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown 2015. Unauthorised use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included on this website without express and written permission from Nicholas de Lacy-Brown is strictly prohibited. For more information on the work of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, head to his art website at www.delacybrown.com