Barbara Nicholls | Crosswinds: A solo exhibition of new paintings
Meakin + Parsons x Hannah Payne is delighted to announce Crosswinds, a solo exhibition of new paintings by British contemporary artist Barbara Nicholls, from 12 May – 10 June 2023.
Barbara Nicholls’ monumental watercolour works emerge by manipulating the behaviour of pigment in ever-increasing quantities of water and wind. Founded on technical experimentation in painting and experiences in nature, Nicholls immersive paintings recall ancient geology, organic forms, and the movement of water and sediment, in pools of vibrant colour. Nicholls’ practice is inspired by time spent experiencing nature in remote places, particularly walking in the Peak District near to her studio, observing the elements of the landscape and nature in the English countryside. Nicholls’ paintings echo elemental movements of the landscape, the shapes and tones observed in the earth, water, and weather.
In Crosswinds, Nicolls’ considers the changing direction of winds in nature and in landscape. Nicholls comments: “In most of the works there is paint entering from all sides, from four edges and these are like winds blowing in from different directions and creating turbulence in the central area of the works. I am also referring to the local winds, the breezes that I aimed across the works using fans in the studio when I made the work.”
Wind and the elements are considered more generally within the paintings; Rebel winds made by buildings or land masses braking up laminar winds and causing turbulence, erosion of rocks over thousands of years by winds, or trees set in a particular direction by the prevailing wind. She is also thinking metaphorically about how the word crosswinds implies something we have to deal with which is unusual; Something coming from the side that we must adjust for in order to carry on in our planned direction.
The title of the exhibition refers to the artist’s recent reading on the subject of ‘The Cross-winds Rule’ in Tristan Gooley’s book The Secret World of Weather (first published by Sceptre in 2021). The cross-winds rule is the important signal that bad weather often follows when clouds are seen moving ‘at right angles’ to those at another level. Gooley explains the cross-winds rule with a literary demonstration found in Thomas Hardy’s Far from The Madding Crowd:
The night had a sinister aspect. A heated breeze from the south slowly fanned the summits of lofty objects, and in the sky dashes of buoyant clouds were sailing in a course at right angles to that of another stratum, neither of them in the direction of the breeze below…Thunder was imminent, and, taking some secondary appearances into consideration, it was likely to be followed by one of the lengthened rains which mark the close of the dry weather for the season.
Barbara Nicholls studied at Goldsmiths College for a BA Fine Art (1982-86), University of East London MFA (1996-98) and Practice Based Doctorate in Fine Art (2000-06).
