Warren Nichols: Western Port 1806 Winter Late Afternoon Seascapes abound in Warren Nichols’ new work as he revels in the changing light over Western Port. Just don’t expect to see a fish in his minimalist work.
By Marian Quigley
THE landscapes of New Zealand, Tasmania and Western Port have all inspired Phillip Island artist Warren Nichols. It was his parents, rather than the academic schooling provided by Auckland Grammar School, who laid the groundwork for his later development as an artist. Regular Sunday trips in the family VW Beetle were memorable despite Warren being squashed in the back seat alongside his two siblings. These journeys were often to remote areas of his native New Zealand, including Muriwai Beach, one-time home to world renowned artist Colin McCahon. The trips were punctuated by the insistent calls of his mother, an enthusiastic, award-winning amateur photographer, to pull over so she could take a shot.
By Marian Quigley
THE landscapes of New Zealand, Tasmania and Western Port have all inspired Phillip Island artist Warren Nichols. It was his parents, rather than the academic schooling provided by Auckland Grammar School, who laid the groundwork for his later development as an artist. Regular Sunday trips in the family VW Beetle were memorable despite Warren being squashed in the back seat alongside his two siblings. These journeys were often to remote areas of his native New Zealand, including Muriwai Beach, one-time home to world renowned artist Colin McCahon. The trips were punctuated by the insistent calls of his mother, an enthusiastic, award-winning amateur photographer, to pull over so she could take a shot.
In 1973 Warren moved to Tasmania to work for a consulting engineer. Here he was exposed to the Save Lake Pedder campaign and went on regular bushwalking expeditions to remote areas including Western Arthurs, Mt Anne and Federation Peak. These experiences, together with his exposure to the painted landscapes of William Piguenet, George Davis (whose Bass Strait Island series was commissioned by the Tasmanian Government) and the renowned watercolourists Jack Carrington-Smith, Max Angus and Patricia Giles, inspired him to take up painting. He enrolled in adult education classes where the distinguished artist and teacher Eileen Brooker introduced him to painting using acrylics on plywood.
During the 1980s recession, when his work with a consulting engineer slowed down, Warren enrolled part time for an associate diploma in art craft and design in the School of Art at the University of Tasmania. Under the directorship of Geoff Parr, the school reinforced the introduction of contemporary art to the students. Tutors including John R. Neeson, Paul Zika, Elizabeth Gower and Les Blakebrough aimed to challenge ideas as opposed to teaching students how to paint – a role regarded as better suited to TAFE.
This was a particularly influential period for Warren’s development as an artist. Having envisaged painting landscapes, he didn’t touch a paint brush for twelve months, focusing instead on collage. However, Neeson later taught him the oil glazing techniques integral to his current work.
Around this time, Dick Bett, a New Zealander who also received an AM for service to the arts, established Dick Bett Gallery (now Bett Gallery) in Salamanca Place, Hobart. The gallery showcased landscape works by recent School of Art graduates including David Keeling, Richard Wastell and Philip Wolfhagen and established artists Raymond Arnold, Tim Burns and Kerry Gregan. Warren soaked up all of this.
Following the end of his marriage, Warren travelled to New Zealand and at Dick Bett’s request, delivered a letter of introduction to the eminent New Zealand artist Don Driver. Driver consequently took up a three month artist’s residency at UTAS and held an exhibition in Hobart in 1994. It was here that Warren met his current partner Sandra Peeters, a social worker with a keen interest in the arts who had been invited to stay in Hobart with her good friends Don and Joyce Driver. Sandra encouraged Warren to resume his painting career.
The couple moved to Ventnor, Phillip Island in 2011 where the views of Western Port from Warren’s studio provided new subject matter for his work, at the same time serving as a natural transition from the greys, blues and soft greens of Tasmania.
Warren’s education at UTAS had exposed him to the wider arts community and practices including artists such as Fred Williams, Peter Booth and Brett Whiteley. It was during his 2013 trip with Sandra to the United States that he found the work of Mark Rothko, Sean Scully, Brice Marden and Gerhard Richter particularly influential. Whereas he had been more of a landscape expressionist, this exposure reinforced his minimalist approach to painting sky, land and sea compositions. His interest in translucency and transition in colour, as dictated by the changing light conditions over Western Port, has led him to explore the application of numerous transparent glazes over a prepared surface - an approach similar to those of Rembrandt and Rothko.
Warren’s overall approach is not to replicate what he sees but to interpret his emotional and intellectual response to the landscape. Some viewers find his minimalist abstractions initially perplexing. One visitor at a local art show was overhead remarking to her companion “Who’d pay that much for that painting? It doesn’t even have a fish in it.”
Nonetheless, Warren continues with his practice, inspired by the persistence of the Australian minimalist artist David Serisier and the minimalism of Asian art. A visit to a Hong Kong exhibition of 19th and 20th century Chinese painting impressed him greatly and made him aware of Max Angus and Fred Williams’ debt to Asian painting. He recently purchased monographs of Chinese and Korean landscape painting.
Warren’s methodical manner of working involves a disciplined, systematic process which reflects his engineering background. He enjoys colour mixing and the process of working out varying colours and intensities. These are achieved by undertaking studies prior to the final paintings. Using oil paint, he begins with a textured base of Titanium White to which, after a seven-day drying period, he adds between 5-30 layers of transparent and translucent paint, sometimes alternating with transparent lead white to achieve the desired intensity and tone of colour. These are applied with a brush or rubber blade and sometimes rubbed back with a soft cloth to highlight the pre-applied application.
Warren emphasises the importance of participation in public exhibitions and belonging to a community of artists. Exhibiting a body of work developed over a period of two years or so is important in revealing his progress and development to both the artist and the public. He has held solo exhibitions at the Inka and Goulburn Street galleries in Hobart, the Quadrant Gallery, Hawthorn and exhibited at the Stephen McLaughlan Gallery in the Nicholas Building, Melbourne and Mingara Gallery, Cowes. He also took part in group shows at the Meeniyan Art Gallery.
National art awards also allow the artist to gauge where he/she sits in the art world. Warren’s acceptance as a finalist in the John Leslie Art Prize at Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale in 2018 proved an important confidence booster for him and provided him with the impetus to push boundaries.
Warren also emphasises the importance of his association with Phillip Island artists, particularly through the activities organised by the Artists’ Society of Phillip Island. The group’s appraisal and life drawing sessions, workshops and exhibitions allow the sharing of ideas and an awareness of his progress over time.
Warren’s next exhibition Sky Land Sea is in Gallery 3, Meeniyan Art Gallery from April 3-29. The official opening is on Sunday April 5 at 2pm.
During the 1980s recession, when his work with a consulting engineer slowed down, Warren enrolled part time for an associate diploma in art craft and design in the School of Art at the University of Tasmania. Under the directorship of Geoff Parr, the school reinforced the introduction of contemporary art to the students. Tutors including John R. Neeson, Paul Zika, Elizabeth Gower and Les Blakebrough aimed to challenge ideas as opposed to teaching students how to paint – a role regarded as better suited to TAFE.
This was a particularly influential period for Warren’s development as an artist. Having envisaged painting landscapes, he didn’t touch a paint brush for twelve months, focusing instead on collage. However, Neeson later taught him the oil glazing techniques integral to his current work.
Around this time, Dick Bett, a New Zealander who also received an AM for service to the arts, established Dick Bett Gallery (now Bett Gallery) in Salamanca Place, Hobart. The gallery showcased landscape works by recent School of Art graduates including David Keeling, Richard Wastell and Philip Wolfhagen and established artists Raymond Arnold, Tim Burns and Kerry Gregan. Warren soaked up all of this.
Following the end of his marriage, Warren travelled to New Zealand and at Dick Bett’s request, delivered a letter of introduction to the eminent New Zealand artist Don Driver. Driver consequently took up a three month artist’s residency at UTAS and held an exhibition in Hobart in 1994. It was here that Warren met his current partner Sandra Peeters, a social worker with a keen interest in the arts who had been invited to stay in Hobart with her good friends Don and Joyce Driver. Sandra encouraged Warren to resume his painting career.
The couple moved to Ventnor, Phillip Island in 2011 where the views of Western Port from Warren’s studio provided new subject matter for his work, at the same time serving as a natural transition from the greys, blues and soft greens of Tasmania.
Warren’s education at UTAS had exposed him to the wider arts community and practices including artists such as Fred Williams, Peter Booth and Brett Whiteley. It was during his 2013 trip with Sandra to the United States that he found the work of Mark Rothko, Sean Scully, Brice Marden and Gerhard Richter particularly influential. Whereas he had been more of a landscape expressionist, this exposure reinforced his minimalist approach to painting sky, land and sea compositions. His interest in translucency and transition in colour, as dictated by the changing light conditions over Western Port, has led him to explore the application of numerous transparent glazes over a prepared surface - an approach similar to those of Rembrandt and Rothko.
Warren’s overall approach is not to replicate what he sees but to interpret his emotional and intellectual response to the landscape. Some viewers find his minimalist abstractions initially perplexing. One visitor at a local art show was overhead remarking to her companion “Who’d pay that much for that painting? It doesn’t even have a fish in it.”
Nonetheless, Warren continues with his practice, inspired by the persistence of the Australian minimalist artist David Serisier and the minimalism of Asian art. A visit to a Hong Kong exhibition of 19th and 20th century Chinese painting impressed him greatly and made him aware of Max Angus and Fred Williams’ debt to Asian painting. He recently purchased monographs of Chinese and Korean landscape painting.
Warren’s methodical manner of working involves a disciplined, systematic process which reflects his engineering background. He enjoys colour mixing and the process of working out varying colours and intensities. These are achieved by undertaking studies prior to the final paintings. Using oil paint, he begins with a textured base of Titanium White to which, after a seven-day drying period, he adds between 5-30 layers of transparent and translucent paint, sometimes alternating with transparent lead white to achieve the desired intensity and tone of colour. These are applied with a brush or rubber blade and sometimes rubbed back with a soft cloth to highlight the pre-applied application.
Warren emphasises the importance of participation in public exhibitions and belonging to a community of artists. Exhibiting a body of work developed over a period of two years or so is important in revealing his progress and development to both the artist and the public. He has held solo exhibitions at the Inka and Goulburn Street galleries in Hobart, the Quadrant Gallery, Hawthorn and exhibited at the Stephen McLaughlan Gallery in the Nicholas Building, Melbourne and Mingara Gallery, Cowes. He also took part in group shows at the Meeniyan Art Gallery.
National art awards also allow the artist to gauge where he/she sits in the art world. Warren’s acceptance as a finalist in the John Leslie Art Prize at Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale in 2018 proved an important confidence booster for him and provided him with the impetus to push boundaries.
Warren also emphasises the importance of his association with Phillip Island artists, particularly through the activities organised by the Artists’ Society of Phillip Island. The group’s appraisal and life drawing sessions, workshops and exhibitions allow the sharing of ideas and an awareness of his progress over time.
Warren’s next exhibition Sky Land Sea is in Gallery 3, Meeniyan Art Gallery from April 3-29. The official opening is on Sunday April 5 at 2pm.