Nick Archer Exhibition – New York |
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9th April 2009
The new series of paintings by Nick Archer refer to children’s paraphernalia scattered on the playroom floor; comics, magazines, glitter and beads, broken toys and Barbie dolls, or characters from children’s programmes, old family video footage, and photographs. Imagery is collaged or painted onto the surface of the artist’s canvas, and then obliterated or accentuated through poured pools of overripe coloured paint. 
Archer is intrigued with the Victorian preoccupation with idealism, fantasy fairytale and myth, in the work of such painters as Richard Dadd and the Pre –Raphaelite brotherhood. The artist incorporates their aesthetics of romanticism into the compositional process, with the contemporary kick of the kitsch to create a rich visual vocabulary that intoxicates the senses with decorative, glittery expanses. These jewel-like qualities are also inspired by such contemporary artists as Fred Tomaselli and Turner Prize winner Chris Ofili. Clearly such beautiful paintings are able to seduce the onlooker, yet in the case of these two artists, simultaneously threaten to repel through often macabre and disturbing imagery. Archer however takes you on a journey into the wondrous and seemingly random meanderings of a child’s mind, yet through the painting process he is able to disrupt notions of what is real or make-believe. The 1917 photographs of the ‘Cottingley Fairies’, a source of inspiration, deceived the public through trick photography into believing the unbelievable, and in much the same way the artist can manipulate our own perceptions of reality. In Archer’s paintings, the photography, collage and painted surfaces are often indistinguishable, and characters and landscape could be either fictional or real. So are we experiencing the artist’s world of visual metaphor or a child’s playful imagination and belief in fairy-tale? In today’s world, searching for answers, this is a dream we could readily escape to. Sarah Myerscough Fine Art, 15-16 Brooks Mews, London, W1K 4DS, www.sarahmyerscough.com
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