Station 13

Pieta
Archival ink pen on watercolour paper
102 x 66 cm
Image courtesy of the artist

My art practice explores power, and how it has been expressed aesthetically throughout the course of Western culture. Much of my recent drawn work has specifically referenced the legacy of visual art commissioned by the Roman Catholic church during the late medieval, renaissance, and baroque periods. Intended as a tribute to the flamboyant aesthetics of high Catholicism, these drawings explore how the Church utilised painting, sculpture, and architecture to cement and reassert its power in the face of rising Protestantism. My drawn work for Stations of the Cross references renaissance and baroque depictions of Christ's body in repose after being taken down from the cross. I am especially interested in how the sensual depiction of fabric was used to symbolise the Spirit, and in how artworks inspired by the Passion allowed artists to celebrate the male form.

Biography

Andrew Nicholls is an Australian/British artist, writer, and curator whose practice engages with the sentimental, camp, and other historically marginalised aesthetics. He is especially concerned with periods of cultural transition during which Western civilisations stoic aspirations were undone by base desires, fears or compulsions. While primarily drawing-based, his practice also incorporates ceramics and photography. Nicholls has exhibited and undertaken residencies across Australia, Southeast Asia, China, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and been the recipient of two Creative Development Fellowships from the Western Australian Government. His work is represented in collections including Artbank, the Art Gallery of Western Australia, Central Institute of Technology, Curtin, Edith Cowan, and Murdoch Universities, the Kedumba Collection of Australian Drawings, and the City of Perth.