Warren Nichols and Turner’s Falls of the Schaffhausen
By Catherine Watson
SEEING his painting hanging alongside original works by J.M.W. Turner is not something Warren Nichols could ever have predicted. It came to reality on Friday night with the opening of a blockbuster exhibition titled Turner & Australia at the Gippsland Art Gallery in Sale.
The exhibition draws together key works by Turner from Australian public collections, alongside works by Australian artists who have been influenced by him, including such illustrious names as Eugene von Guérard, Frederick McCubbin, Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton, Clarice Beckett, Jessie Traill, Lloyd Rees, Tracey Moffatt, Tony Smibert and Valerie Sparks.
And Warren Nichols. Twelve months ago, the Ventnor landscape artist received an invitation from curator and gallery director Simon Gregg to join the distinguished group.
SEEING his painting hanging alongside original works by J.M.W. Turner is not something Warren Nichols could ever have predicted. It came to reality on Friday night with the opening of a blockbuster exhibition titled Turner & Australia at the Gippsland Art Gallery in Sale.
The exhibition draws together key works by Turner from Australian public collections, alongside works by Australian artists who have been influenced by him, including such illustrious names as Eugene von Guérard, Frederick McCubbin, Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton, Clarice Beckett, Jessie Traill, Lloyd Rees, Tracey Moffatt, Tony Smibert and Valerie Sparks.
And Warren Nichols. Twelve months ago, the Ventnor landscape artist received an invitation from curator and gallery director Simon Gregg to join the distinguished group.
“Simon’s thought for a long time about the influence of Turner upon Australian artists. He contacted me out of the blue, told me what he's doing and asked if I had some images that were suitable for the exhibition. So I sent him two and he selected one.”
In an article about the exhibition published in Artist Profile last month, Gregg singled out Nichols’ work for special mention of those “in conversation with” Turner’s later works.
“Probably the most abstract is Mist Over Western Port III, 2022 by Warren Nichols, which looks like it’s just flat blue but when you get in close you can just make out the distinction of water and sky,” Gregg suggests.
“He mixes marble dust in his paints and uses the most subtle colours, so it really has to be seen ‘in the flesh’. Those are the sort of innovations that speak to Turner’s late works.”
In an article about the exhibition published in Artist Profile last month, Gregg singled out Nichols’ work for special mention of those “in conversation with” Turner’s later works.
“Probably the most abstract is Mist Over Western Port III, 2022 by Warren Nichols, which looks like it’s just flat blue but when you get in close you can just make out the distinction of water and sky,” Gregg suggests.
“He mixes marble dust in his paints and uses the most subtle colours, so it really has to be seen ‘in the flesh’. Those are the sort of innovations that speak to Turner’s late works.”
Warren Nichols: Mist Over Western Port III, oil and marble dust on canvas.
Nichols says he nearly fell through the floor when he read the article and found his work singled out amidst a host of famous names.
He has known about the exhibition since last May and it has kept him going through some very dark times. Nichols has curated the past four of PICES’ pop-up summer exhibitions. Just before the opening of this year’s exhibition, he was diagnosed with a tumour on his oesophagus. He underwent six weeks of chemotherapy and radiotherapy before an eight-hour operation in March to remove the tumour.
He's now cancer free but it’s been a long haul and there are months of recovery ahead. “Knowing about the exhibition has provided something to look forward to and an incentive to keep going.”
The invitation from Gregg sent him back to a quote he entered in his work diary about three years ago and had forgotten.
“The watery expanse of the lakes and the suspended mists of the atmosphere created shimmering expansive visions of colour in which water merges with shore and mountaintops dissolve in light and clouds.”
The quote was taken from an old catalogue of a Turner exhibition held at the NGV and the National Gallery of Australia in 1996. It’s a reference to how Turner in his later years started to connect the sky with the land and the land with the sea without delineation.
It’s something Nichols has been doing in his own art practice, which is an increasingly minimalist series of landscapes of Western Port.
“Because they're my late works too,” he muses. “It's as though everything has been leading up to this point.” While he has certainly been influenced by Turner’s luminous works, he’s not sure how much is conscious and how much unconscious.
“Bear in mind that I look out over Western Port daily and that's my muse. To me, the work I'm doing now is a natural progression of what I was doing earlier on, but I've gone into a much softer, minimal approach.
“What's happened with those later works it's something that's there but it's not there. When I see the clouds and storms rolling through Western Port, I find it quite dramatic, albeit quite peaceful. I'm not interested in delineation of specific landforms or the fact there might be a ship out there. I'm interested in the light and space and that's what Turner was about in his later works.”
So there's less and less in his paintings and more and more?
Nichols laughs. At one of his exhibitions he heard someone say, “Who would pay money like that for a painting like that? It hasn't even got a fish in it.”
The other influence is Chinese work. He saw an exhibition in Hong Kong some years ago, and was struck by the minimalism of Chinese art work.
He doesn’t have the strength yet to resume his normal art practice, which involves applying a foundation layer of paint mixed with marble dust while the canvas is on the floor prior to numerous transparent/translucent colours once it's on the easel. In the meantime he’s bought some water colours and received encouragement – and a sheet of premium water colour paper – from renowned Phillip Island water colourist David Taylor.
Nichols says he’s looking forward to having a go. His subject? Western Port, of course.
And then there’s the next PICES pop-up exhibition at Berninneit, which he will once again curate. He’s been working on the documentation for applications to be invited in July. “Given my present state where I can't paint, the fact that I can sit behind a computer and scribe words can be quite relaxing in a way.”
Turner & Australia exhibition, Gippsland Art Gallery, 70 Foster Street, Sale, June 7 - August 24. Open Monday-Friday 9am-5.30pm, Weekends 10am-4pm.
He has known about the exhibition since last May and it has kept him going through some very dark times. Nichols has curated the past four of PICES’ pop-up summer exhibitions. Just before the opening of this year’s exhibition, he was diagnosed with a tumour on his oesophagus. He underwent six weeks of chemotherapy and radiotherapy before an eight-hour operation in March to remove the tumour.
He's now cancer free but it’s been a long haul and there are months of recovery ahead. “Knowing about the exhibition has provided something to look forward to and an incentive to keep going.”
The invitation from Gregg sent him back to a quote he entered in his work diary about three years ago and had forgotten.
“The watery expanse of the lakes and the suspended mists of the atmosphere created shimmering expansive visions of colour in which water merges with shore and mountaintops dissolve in light and clouds.”
The quote was taken from an old catalogue of a Turner exhibition held at the NGV and the National Gallery of Australia in 1996. It’s a reference to how Turner in his later years started to connect the sky with the land and the land with the sea without delineation.
It’s something Nichols has been doing in his own art practice, which is an increasingly minimalist series of landscapes of Western Port.
“Because they're my late works too,” he muses. “It's as though everything has been leading up to this point.” While he has certainly been influenced by Turner’s luminous works, he’s not sure how much is conscious and how much unconscious.
“Bear in mind that I look out over Western Port daily and that's my muse. To me, the work I'm doing now is a natural progression of what I was doing earlier on, but I've gone into a much softer, minimal approach.
“What's happened with those later works it's something that's there but it's not there. When I see the clouds and storms rolling through Western Port, I find it quite dramatic, albeit quite peaceful. I'm not interested in delineation of specific landforms or the fact there might be a ship out there. I'm interested in the light and space and that's what Turner was about in his later works.”
So there's less and less in his paintings and more and more?
Nichols laughs. At one of his exhibitions he heard someone say, “Who would pay money like that for a painting like that? It hasn't even got a fish in it.”
The other influence is Chinese work. He saw an exhibition in Hong Kong some years ago, and was struck by the minimalism of Chinese art work.
He doesn’t have the strength yet to resume his normal art practice, which involves applying a foundation layer of paint mixed with marble dust while the canvas is on the floor prior to numerous transparent/translucent colours once it's on the easel. In the meantime he’s bought some water colours and received encouragement – and a sheet of premium water colour paper – from renowned Phillip Island water colourist David Taylor.
Nichols says he’s looking forward to having a go. His subject? Western Port, of course.
And then there’s the next PICES pop-up exhibition at Berninneit, which he will once again curate. He’s been working on the documentation for applications to be invited in July. “Given my present state where I can't paint, the fact that I can sit behind a computer and scribe words can be quite relaxing in a way.”
Turner & Australia exhibition, Gippsland Art Gallery, 70 Foster Street, Sale, June 7 - August 24. Open Monday-Friday 9am-5.30pm, Weekends 10am-4pm.