The Gallery is closed from 22nd December to the 23rd February 2025 for refurbishment.
Clark Nicol studied painting at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee during which time he was a prize winner in the Scottish Open Art Competition at Arbroath , while he was a resident artist at Hospitalfield House.
After a post-graduate award, he moved to London where he taught art while continuing to paint.
Frequent visits to his wife’s family in Devon led to his discovery of Dartmoor and the North Devon coast which have since then been a great source of inspiration to him. In 2002 they moved to West Devon with their two children and he has focused almost exclusively on the local landscape. In 2003 he took up the post of Head of Art at Plymouth College.
In 2016 and 2018 he was shortlisted for the Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year Competition and Cornwall Life Landscape Painter.
His work is in many private collections in UK and abroad.
“In my newest work the dialogue between pictorial depth and the flat plane of the canvas invites viewers to be aware of the act of viewing and to enjoy the changes in perception these marks can create. I find that the power, energy, wetness, and textures of the coast, which are all sensory experiences that don't rely on the visual experience, can be better expressed through different forms of mark making. Working in this zone allows me to explore the environmental importance of the coast, referencing this through imagery and title, to allow the viewer to make connections.”
Gary is based in Totnes and studied at Dartington College of Arts in late-1990s.
Having worked mainly in performance and live art over the last 25 years and presenting work worldwide my practice has a renewed emphasis in print and 2D pieces, with an interest in expressing task and process, repetition and rhythm, a layering of time. The work ranges across lens-based and print media, producing hand-printed works or one-off collaged and painted pieces; often augmenting, disrupting and veiling pre-existing ‘found’ prints and images.
I have recently made a pledge to work with and use the art materials, items and curios I have accumulated through my creative life – both as a stance towards consumption and also as a limiting device to generate forays into unfamiliar processes and practices. This makes the output knowingly eclectic, a marriage of the media leading an idea or an idea explored through a material.
Exhibited in the gallery are pieces from a few different series of works: from overpainting and overworking of mass-produced posters and pages from mid-20th century, the re-working of found images of unknown photographers to limited edition screen-prints. I do not make additional ‘prints’ of works so each is the original and unique. I have presented work throughout the UK, most recently new work has been exhibited in solo and group shows at Field System Gallery in Ashburton.
Please see my website to view and purchase past and current work