Jacques Nimki
dal 5/4/2006 al 6/5/2006
Segnalato da
5/4/2006
Jacques Nimki
The Approach, London
The artist works from the landscape, using direct observation of plants as the main inspiration. For the past seven years, he has concentrated on painting and drawing weeds and wild flowers found in the urban environment.
The Approach is pleased to present Jacques Nimki's second solo show at the gallery. Nimki works from the landscape, using direct observation of plants as the main inspiration. For the past seven years, he has concentrated on painting and drawing weeds and wild flowers found in the urban environment; neglected plants inhabiting places that are usually unexplored, existing despite their inhospitable surroundings. For his installation at The Approach, Nimki will also transplant into the gallery the most common of weeds found in any inner city environment, which have been carefully propagated from seeds. Nimki will fully cover the gallery floor with these plants, their composition considered in much the same way as in his drawings and paintings.
Nimki describes his works as `Florilegiums', a word which literally means `flower book' and alludes to a time when plants were grown increasingly for pleasure, for decorative purposes or as symbols of status and intellect rather than for their practical uses in medicine and culinary. `Florilegia' were albums of illustrations commissioned by wealthy landowners in the seventeenth century to record the carefully cultivated flora and fauna of their gardens in an often flattering and fanciful way. These images preserved a record of what would otherwise pass away, and were used primarily as statements of possession and status. Drawing on a culture of collecting based on curiosity and beauty rather than scientific investigation, Nimki begins by walking around a specific area, researching and collecting information. He records a variety of data both factual and fictional about the varieties of weeds he encounters, combining the traditional techniques of flower pressing and seed collecting with drawings made on location using a basic programme run on a Palm Pilot, and drawings copied from botanical guides and How to Draw plant books.
These sketches originate large-scale intricate drawings on paper or directly onto walls. Each work is a map; a record of a given area. Beautiful, complex networks of intertwined weeds are drawn with the obsessive quality of a fanatical hobbyist through a variety of mediums. Nimki's delicate use of H pencil creates very fine, barely visible lines, elegantly built up in intense layers. The abstract quality of this accumulation of forms forces the eye to meander across the surface of the page, pausing to isolate fragments of line and detail. In Nimki's acrylic paintings, dried petals and seeds are laminated to the surface, jewel-like. Combining the precision of Victorian illustration with the wilder character of the rambling weed, Nimki creates elaborate compounds of intense detail, which like the plants they are inspired by, grow into complex patterns of regeneration.
Jacques Nimki was born in Mauritius and lives and works in London. Recent solo shows include The Camden Arts Centre, London and Ikon Gallery, Birmingham. Group exhibitions include `Art of the Garden', Tate Britain, `Out of Line', Arts Council of England touring exhibition, and `Nature and Nation', Hastings Museum & Art Gallery. His work can be found in the public collections of the Arts Council of England, Camden Arts Centre and Worcester Art Gallery.
Opening: 6th April 2006
The Approach
47 Approach Road - London
Hours: Wednesday to Sunday from 12 - 6pm or by appointment.