Nick Fox
Lecturer in Fine Art

  • Email: nick.fox@ncl.ac.uk
  • Telephone: +44 (0) 191 222 5684
  • Personal Website: http://ww.axisweb.org/seCVPG.aspx?ARTISTID=14272
  • Address: Website Links:

    Nick Fox Unveiled with Francis Picabia at MOCA London
    www.mocalondon.co.uk
    Paul Stone’s Text on Axis Open Frequency
    http://ww.axisweb.org/ofSARF.aspx?SELECTIONID=19710
    Axis Artists Page
    http://ww.axisweb.org/seCVPG.aspx?ARTISTID=1

Introduction

Central to Nick Fox’s painting practice is his fascination with narratives of desire, often subversive, and in combination with domestic objects, drawing and context specific installation. His recent projects include Unveiled, with Francis Picabia, Jerwood Contemporary Painters and the touring solo exhibition Phantasieblume. Fox is currently Artist in Residence at the National Glass Centre, Sunderland.

Research Interests

Central to Nick Fox’s painting practice is his fascination with narratives, often subversive, and in combination with domestic objects, drawing and context specific installation.

Building on the delicate relationship between fine art and craft, his research explores representational and material orthodoxies in painting languages though two symbiotic strands. Firstly this focuses physically on an exploration of the narrative potential of the paint material. The second strand of research explores visual and symbolic codes of romantic desire and explicit eroticism, reflected in systems of pictorial and personal codes of concealment.

Major Projects such as Unveiled with Francis Picabia at MOCA London, have enabled Fox to make new work which reflects on the erotic narratives of historical paintings. This project, in counterpoint with Picabia’s Femme aux Perles, resulted in the production of a number of significant works including “Tableaux”, an 18ft site specific painting which was draped under the museums collection of texts. Other works from this series included Parlour, selected for Jerwood Contemporary Painters 2007, touring Nationally to London, Cardiff and Manchester.

Other Expertise

Fox is currently engaged in the production of new work which draws on a hybridity of mythologies, enabled through a research and development phase at the National Glass Centre, Sunderland. Leading up to 2010, the project will involve the research of glass making processes and the development of new work with the assistance of craftpersons based at the NGC.

Current Work

Nick Fox’s recent projects include the touring exhibition Phantasieblume, funded by Centre for Recent Drawing, Vane, National Glass Centre, Arts Council England and Newcastle University. This series of art works is a collection of paintings and objects cut from paint, which explores romantic idealisation, personal histories and representations of desire.

Phantasieblume, refers to Floriography, the floral code of concealment, devised to circumvent austere Victorian social codes. The exhibition blends an elaborate domesticity with the subtle articulation of romance, desire and fantasy.

A cabinet in the centre of the intimate gallery space, containing a collection of painted and cut objects, utilises the poetry of artefact to combine Fox’s interest in collecting, personal history and representation. These works recall Victorian lace-making crafts but differ by being made entirely from cut acrylic paint. On the walls, a set of paintings echo thematic and visual references to desire, romanticism, seduction and fantasy. Elaborate figurative drawings are interwoven with competing perspectives of decoration and craft, creating elusive narratives of desire, the origins of which are drawn from the metaphorical language of sexual desire and courtship embedded in Victorian floral codes, and the veiled symbolism of Vanitas paintings.

The exhibition tours from the Centre for Recent Drawing (London) to VANE Gallery, (Newcastle) in February 2010.

In 2006 Fox was invited by the Director of MOCA London, Michael Petry, to participate in a new curatorial programme which coupled younger artists with historical artists. This two-sited exhibition At MOCA London and the Royal Academy Schools Gallery, represented his concerns with eroticism and desire by employing contemporary interpretations of historical narrative painting. His resulting Exhibition ,Unveiled , at MOCA London, presented new work in counterpoint with Francis Picabia’s Femmee aux Perles which enabled parallells to be drawn on the universality of the erotic impulse. Other work exhibited at MOCA were Tableaux, an 18ft long site-specific painting made from a single skin of paint was sited below the extensive collection of museum texts and music room, a regency musical table covered with a ‘tablecloth’ of acrylic paint featuring decoupage and drawn and painted surfaces, insinuating a historical context to the work. He concurrently exhibited 11 new paintings at the Royal Academy Schools Gallery, Hornsey. A Significant piece made for this show was Parlour, a three-dimensional painting made of a reproduction Edwardian table covered with a ‘tablecloth’ of acrylic paint. This work was selected for the Internationally recognised Jerwood Contemporary Painters Touring Exhibition in 2007.

Funded by Future City and St James’s Homes, a publication documenting work from this two site exhibition was published by MOCA London in conjunction with the Royal Academy of Arts. The accompanying text was written by the art Historian John Cairns. ISBN 0-9552577-0-0

Postgraduate Supervision

MFA Supervision of Studio and Dissertation

Esteem Indicators

Projects

Solo Exhibitions
2010 Phantasiebume,Vane Gallery, Newcastle (forthcoming march 2010)
2009 Phantasieblume, Centre for Recent Drawing London
2007 Nectary , Lawrence Graham, London
2006 Nick Fox, New Work, Royal Academy Schools Gallery, Hornsey
2006 Unveiled, MOCA, London, with Francis Picabia. Catalogue Published by MOCA London in conjunction with the Royal Academy of Arts 2006, ISBN 0-9552577-0-0

Publications:
Nick Fox, New Paintings
Published by MOCA London in conjunction with the Royal Academy of Arts 2006,
ISBN 0-9552577-0-0, 15pages,
Full Colour Illustrations.
www.raschoolsgallery.co.uk

Jerwood Contemporary Painters 2007
Exhibition Catalogue
Published by the Jerwood Charitable Foundation

Jerwood Drawing Prize 2002 catalogue
Exhibition Catalogue
Published by the Jerwood Foundation

Celeste Art Prize 2006 Catalogue
Exhibition Catalogue

2008 Berwick Gymnasium Fellowship 2008 Selection Panellist
2009 Hines Urban Gallery, One Sririt Showcase Project, London, www.onespiritshowcase.com
2008 Invited to participate in “Golden Rain” a Michael Petry project for on the edge, and Stavanger 2008, Norway.
Exhibited for Ha Gamle Prestegard and Stavanger 2008
Golden Rain Catalogue published by MOCA London in conjunction with HA gamel prestegard.
ISBN 978-0-9557699-3-1

Group Exhibitions

2009 40 artists 80 Drawings, The Drawing Gallery
2008 Baltic , Arena Gallery, Liverpool Biennial 2008
2008 Works on paper, Centre for Recent Drawing, London
2008 Annual Pride Art Exhibition, Clifford Chance, London and Clifford Chance, New York
A simultaneous exhibition of work by gay and lesbian artists
2008 Nature 00 Contemporary Art Projects, (group show) London2008
2008 TEN, Dueche Bank, group Show
2008 “I stole a look” music/visual collaboration screened at Southwark Playhouse, Shipwright Yard
London SE1 2TF collaborative project with C4 collective, performed at Southwark Playhouse.
(www.southwarkplayhouse.co.uk
2007 Kettles Yard, C4 presentation, “ I stole a look” Collaborative film Performance .
2007 Faster than Sound, New music Festival. Collaborative film performance“ tableau”
2007 Jerwood Contemporary painters (touring)
2007 New British Painters, Curated by Flora Fairbairn, London
2007 New projects, Contemporary art projects
2007 The London Art fair, the Drawing Gallery
2007 Grotto, Studio 1.1, London
2006 Salon connexions, Contemporary art projects, London
2006 This Longing, the Drawing Gallery, London
2006 Seventeen Gallery: Pulse Art Fair, New York
2005 Ten, Seventeen Gallery, London
2005 Lekker, Group show, APT gallery, London
2005 Crusaid, Royal College of Art, London
2005 Los Angeles Art Fair, Western Project.
2005 Twisted Nerve, Keller Greene, LA
2004 Western Projects, Miami Art Fair
2004 20th Century Perspectives, Burlington Fine Art, London
2004 A Fine line, Euroart gallery, London
2004 Issues of Identity, The art house, Westbourne
2004 The Armoury Show, New York
2003 Vanitas, Raid Projects, Los Angeles
2003 Art Futures, Contemporary Art Society
2002 Jerwood Drawing Prize (touring)
2002 Summer Show, Davies and Tooth, W1
2002 Flash, Belfast
2002 Art Futures 2002, London

Residencies and Awards

2009 National Glass Centre, Sunderland Aug 09-dec 09
2007 Aldeburgh, 5-day residency summer 2007.
2007 Jerwood Painting Prize 2007 award winner
2001 Postgraduate research Award, Arts And Humanities Research Board, 1998-2001
2001 Newby trust Ltd Award, Royal Academy Schools, 2001
2000 The Victoria Levin Fund Award, Royal Academy Schools, 2000
1995 Travel Award, Hunting Art Prizes 1995,

REPRESENTATION IN MUSEUMS AND COLLECTIONS

Jigsaw, AP Kearney, Museum of Contemporary Art, London, Norman Rosenthal, Jean Pigozzi. David Roberts Foundation.

Website Links:

Nick Fox Unveiled with Francis Picabia at MOCA London
www.mocalondon.co.uk
Paul Stone’s Text on Axis Open Frequency
http://ww.axisweb.org/ofSARF.aspx?SELECTIONID=19710
Axis Artists Page
http://ww.axisweb.org/seCVPG.aspx?ARTISTID=1

Funding

Arts Council England
Newcastle University (Faculty Research Fund)

Undergraduate Teaching

All Undergraduate programmes on the Fine Art BA

Postgraduate Teaching

MFA Supervision of Studio and Dissertation