Artist Picks: Erin Nicholls
Recently, we’ve been asking a few of our bestselling artists to share their favourite Bluethumb artworks. So far, we’ve heard from Sally Browne and Ashvin Harrison, and this week we’re looking at a few artist picks from Erin Nicholls.
Erin has selected a number of pieces depicting various aspects of urban life. “That is what I’m currently creating, so I’m automatically more drawn to those images at the moment,” says Erin.
One of Erin’s picks, Red Light District, 2am by Karen Bloomfield.
She is referring to her recent work set on the streets of Japan, which captures brief moments of drama, beauty or sadness in otherwise mundane daily life. Erin’s first series, A Year in Japan, depicts a singular man on the street, exploring the Japanese idea of ‘mono no aware’ or the gentle sadness of transitory beauty. Meanwhile, her current series, A Night in Japan, focusses on a number of characters in different scenarios tied together by their experiences on one, single night.
Erin’s own artwork, A Memory of Spring.
Artistically, Erin’s work is extremely distinctive in style, and is influenced by Studio Ghibli-esque animation as well as traditional Japanese woodblock prints. One can guess that this is the result of Erin’s experimentation with a number of creative disciplines, as well as years of travel and studies in art.
Sadly, Erin couldn’t be there on the night to receive her award for Works on Canvas, but luckily a friend was able to accept on her behalf!
“My taste in art has always been really varied,” says Erin. “I love both photo realism and impressionism. I’ve always preferred oil paintings, but my love for watercolours is growing now that I’ve been seeing so many great artworks by artists such as Richard Chao. Richard’s works are soft, detailed and beautiful. My other favourite Bluethumb artists are Peter Roccella, who has really somber, moody landscape scenes, Logan Moody, who creates amazingly detailed stencil artworks, and Pauline Bailey, whose colourful, urban artworks are really fun, focusing on the small designs in buildings in a way that makes them look almost two-dimensional.”
One of Richard’s stunning watercolour pieces, Edinburgh City. Click here for all of Erin’s artist picks!
“There’s not really one particular style of art I tend to gravitate towards, as my taste is so varied,” she goes on. “Some of my favourite artists are Klimt, Van Gogh, Monet, Waterhouse, Brett Whiteley, Rothko, Hokusai… My own artworks do tend to be more realism than abstract, but that’s not to say I wouldn’t own or create a totally abstract work. I also love minimalism. My love of architecture and design also plays a part, and is part of the reason I chose these urban works for my curation. The urban artworks I’ve chosen all have great design elements, use of colour and technique.”
Click here to see all of Erin’s Bluethumb picks.
