Dance Like Nobodys Watching

This piece channels the spirit of late-night dance floors, masked personalities, and the strange intimacy of shared chaos. The striped figure, the twisted limbs, the geometric backdrop; they’re echoes of carnival energy and theatrical flair, stitched together in a surreal celebration of movement and identity.

This painting was sparked by a moment of pure mischief, a memory of bodies moving freely, unselfconsciously, like characters in a dream where logic takes a holiday.
I hope viewers feel amused, intrigued, maybe even a little unsettled. The goal isn’t to explain, but to invite curiosity, to let the eye wander and the mind invent stories. It’s a piece that rewards playful interpretation and resists tidy conclusions.
I leaned into abstraction and distortion to break the rules of anatomy and realism because this isn’t about bodies, it’s about energy. The bold colours and exaggerated forms create rhythm and tension, while the surreal style allows each figure to become a symbol: of joy, awkwardness, rebellion, or connection. It’s a visual playground, where emotion leads and logic follows.

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Artists are often obsessive about their particular discipline and none more so than Nicholas Broughton who considers a day without painting or sculpting to be incomplete as he is a self-confessed “addict to the canvas”.

A fascination with the human condition and a childhood passion for painting and sculpture have crystalised in him resulting in a desire to paint pictures that are honest expressions of his inner feelings and personal experiences – “from the heart”. His varied background has no doubt contributed to this fascination for the vibrancy of life that he so confidently depicts in his paintings and sculptures.

Nicholas was born in Mali, in the part of Bamako which is now the home of the Malian jazz scene. From Mali he moved to Brighton in England at a young age and from there to Bangkok, Thailand, where he spent the next six years of his life absorbing the colours, smells and tastes of the Orient.

His most formative years were spent in Brazil where, in addition to learning Portuguese, he learned to adapt to a fascinating and variegated scene where different cultural backgrounds and traditions blend together. This time in Brazil helped to inspire his current "Favela" series.

The Brazilian artist Di Cavalcanti was an early influence but after he started painting seriously, the influence of Picasso, Modigliani, and Chagall has dominated his canvasses and sculptures. Nicholas’s clarity of idea and image, and distinctive sense of colour attest to his daring individual stance in making powerful impassioned statements.

“My paintings do not have to be considered beautiful as long as they make people think and instil in them the desired emotion. People see things differently, feel things differently and react to life differently, therefore a piece of art forms a unique relationship with each individual”. Nicholas.