Nicolas Party got his start as a graffiti artist in the 1990s. He then earned his BFA from the Lausanne School of Art and his MFA from the Glasgow School of Art. Primarily known for his color –saturated paintings and murals, he also makes painted sculpture, pastels, installations, print and drawings.
Party’s work combines historical and contemporary techniques. Inspired by the graphic landscape of David Hockney, the bright color planes of the Fauves, and the flat figures found in medieval Christian paintings, Party selects and re-imagines familiar pastoral scenes, arrangements of fruit, or coffee pots and reuses them in his work in a unique way.
Among his recent solo exhibitions in Europe was “Boys and Pastel,” an amusement park–like installation inside Inverlieth House in the Royal Botanic Garden of Edinburgh. Spanning every inch of the seven gallery spaces, Party’s work transformed the venue with gorgeous colors and upbeat humor.
In his first solo museum exhibition in the U.S., Swiss artist Nicolas Party and his two assistants worked to transform the Dallas Museum of Art’s Concourse into an enchantingly surreal landscape.
Rather than treat the space like a museum, the artist’s mural builds on the fact that it surrounds a walkway. “The people here are moving, they don’t stop. That was my main inspiration for the space. Instead of creating an exhibition space, I wanted to create a path and use the real function of the space,” Party says of the fluidity of the corridor. Nicolas Party: Pathway will be on view through February 5, 2017.
Party captures so much energy in his still life’s and portraits.
Party lives and works in Brussels, Belgium. I look forward to seeing more of his work.
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