About the work
Nicolas Party has created Portrait with Shells, 2021 especially for Whitechapel Gallery to accompany the exhibition Eileen Agar: Angel of Anarchy, 19 May – 29 Aug 2021.
The subject matter of this woodcut print, was inspired by Eileen Agar’s use of sea creatures, such as shells, starfish and corals, which feature in many of the lAgar’s works. Party is interested in how, until recently, the life of the oceans remained unexplored, with many of the extraordinary creatures that live there unseen. Still to this date we know more about the surface of other planets that we know about the bottom of our oceans. For Party, the sea-world holds great power in our collective imagination and Agar was able to capture that magic in her work in a wonderful way
About the artist
Nicolas Party B. Lausanne, Switzerland, 1980, Lives and works in New York. Party works primarily in paint and pastel, making figurative paintings, landscapes, portraits, and still lives. that simultaneously celebrate and challenge conventions of representational painting. In Party’s distinctive visual language and use of perspective objects, characters and motifs become abstracted. Party’s practice includes public murals, ceramics, printmaking, installations, and sculptures, including painted sculptures. These works use colour and architectural interventions to construct exhibitions in which works are displayed. Party cites 19th-century Swiss artists such as Félix Vallotton, Ferdinand Hodler and self-taught artists such as Louis Eilshemius and Milton Avery as references for his work.
Selected exhibitions
Recent solo shows include: Hauser & Wirth, 'Sottobosco', Los Angeles CA (2020), Xavier Hufkens, 'Grotto', Brussels, Belgium (2019), The FLAG Art Foundation, 'Nicolas Party: Pastel', cur. Nicolas Party, New York NY (2019), Marble House, 'Nicolas Party at Marble House', Newport RI (2019), Marciano Art Foundation, 'Trees', Los Angeles CA (2019), The Modern Institute, 'Polychrome', Glasgow, Scotland (2019), M WOODS, 'Arches', Beijing, China (2018), Galerie Gregor Staiger, 'Heads', Zurich, Switzerland (2018), Magritte Museum, 'Magritte Parti', Brussels, Belgium (2018), The Modern Institute, Aird’s Lane Green Space, 'Head’, Glasgow, Scotland (2018), Kaufmann Repetto, 'Pietra Dura', Milan, Italy (2018), Modern Art Oxford, 'Speakers', cur. Stephanie Straine, Oxford, UK (2017), The Arnold and Marie Schwartz Gallery Met at Lincoln Center, 'Dinner for 24 Sheep', New York NY (2017), Karma, 'Pastel', New York NY (2017), Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, 'sunrise, sunset', cur. Stéphane Aquin, Washington DC (2017), Xavier Hufkens, 'Three Seasons', Brussels, Belgium (2017), Palazzo Antinori, 'Nicolas Party in the Garden Room', cur. Ilaria Bonacossa, Florence, Italy (2016), Hammer Museum, 'Hammer Projects: Nicolas Party', cur. Ali Subotnick, Los Angeles CA (2016), The Modern Institute, 'Three Cats', Glasgow, Scotland (2016), Dallas Museum of Art‚ 'Nicolas Party: Pathway', cur. Nolan Jimbo and Gavin Delahunty, Dallas TX (2016), CAN Centre d’art Neuchâtel, 'Cimaise', Neuchâtel, Switzerland (2016), Glasgow Print Studio, 'Mezzotint', Glasgow, Scotland (2016).
