Stephen Niccolls
Statement
Every sensation has the potential of finding its way into my paintings. The colors, shapes, and textures in them have qualities that I have perceived, or that I remember. So the work is not only about sensory experience, but about the memory of sensory experience. And it turns out that this happens whether I intend it or not.
Every painting establishes its own unique context, or world. My paintings often have elements that might evoke still-life, landscape, or portrait painting. My goal is to sum up the mood of being in a place and time, whether it is distant or where I am, and whether it is in the past or now.
Bio
I was born in Texas. Eventually, I studied art in a semi-formal setting at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. At that time I was making paintings about certain kinds of space, especially the spaces remembered from childhood in the southwest. Through the influence of my teachers and exemplars, my work gradually focussed on other ways of seeing, exploring color, form, light, and more. The paintings needed to be “abstract”, in the sense that they should visually refer [as much as possible] to their own internal logic and context. This approach continues to the present. A Master of Fine Arts degree was awarded to me at the University of Massachusetts in 1997.