Works
Overview

"We have all sat on the beach conscious of both looking and being looked at. Conscious

too of how bodies on beaches seem especially connected to the landscape, often literally

embedded in it. We have squinted at the light and seen our surroundings dissolve and

reform, mirage-like, as the eye adjusts and focuses. From up high on the cliffs we zoom

in and out, scanning and selecting, picking the individual from the mass, seeking pattern

and order from the apparently casual relationships of bodies in space."

For Nick, the beach and the photograph of the beach have equal status as subject, and when explored through his richly handled and formally articulate painting, a further layer of pleasurable looking, thinking and reflection is added.

Biography

"Bodies in space become the ‘figure-ground relationship’, a central issue for so much

painting. The beach starts each day like a blank canvas, people arrive and organise

themselves, in relation to the sun, sea, land and wind, but most importantly to each

other. It is like a grand experiment in social behaviour where all you need to know about

human interaction is there, visible and paintable. It is also an endlessly changing optical

field allowing an exploration of the territory between abstraction and representation,

and those transitional moments when a thing becomes untied from a singular reading,

ground becomes light, bodies dissolve into paint, the illusionary becomes physical."

With the advent of digital photography, Nick, who until that point had been an abstract

painter and maker of representational and observational drawings, became fascinated

by the possibilities new technology provided for the studio painter. His works are now as

much an exploration of the relationship between paint and digital manipulation as they

are an exploration of subject.

 

Nick lives and paints on the flood plain of the Ouse at the foot of the South Downs near

Lewes in East Sussex. The imagery in his paintings is derived from drawings and

photographs done in locations on the south coast of England, particularly Sussex and

Cornwall, and on research trips to what he describes as the ‘distorting mirror’ of New

Zealand and Australia.

 

Born in 1957 in Richmond, London, Nick has a BA in Fine Art from the university of

Wolverhampton and, after many years as a lecturer in Fine Art at a number of art

colleges, now lives and works as a full time painter near Lewes in East Sussex. He exhibits

widely in London and the South.

 

Porthminster Gallery, St Ives has represented Nick Bodimeade exclusively in Cornwall

since 2009.

 

He exhibits widely in London and the South.

 

Selected current/recent exhibitions:

2021  'A Space to Breathe' Porthminster Gallery, St Ives   

2019  Studio Show in collaboration with Sarah Okane Fine Art

           'Between Worlds' Glyndebourne Opera House Gallery

           Campden Gallery, Chipping Campden

           Zimmer Stewart Gallery, Arundel

           Porthminster Gallery, St Ives 

           Caxton Gallery, Whitstable

           Nadia Waterfield Fine Art, Hampshire

​2018  Porthminster Gallery, St Ives

           Zimmer Stewart Gallery, Arundel

           Glyndeborne Opera House Gallery, Glynde

           Caxton Gallery, Whitstable

            St Annes Gallery, Lewes

2017  Zimmer Stewart Gallery, 'Bostal'

2016  Sarah Okane Fine Art, Lewes. 'Tracks, Trails and Tarmac'

2015  Zimmer Stewart Gallery, Arundel, 'Southern Winds'

2013  Sarah O'Kane Fine Art, Lewes.'B-Roads'

           Porthminster Gallery, St Ives. 'From Here'
2012  Zimmer Stewart Gallery, Arundel. 'Standing, Sitting, Walking, Lying'
2011  Sarah O'Kane Fine Art, Lewes. 'Chromide St'
2010  Campden Gallery, Chipping Campden. 'Sometimes a Blob' 
2009  Sarah O'Kane Fine Art, St Annes Galleries, Lewes. 'Winnebago'
2008  Campden Gallery, Chipping Campden. 'Onomatopoeia' 
2008  Zimmer Stewart Gallery, Arundel. 'Beach Geometry' 
2007  HQ Gallery, Lewes. 'Dwelling'
2005  Star Gallery 2, Lewes. 'A Day Last Summer'.

Selected Group Exhibitions

2017  Towards Night , Towner Gallery, Eastbourne

2015  Porthminster Gallery, St Ives 'Summer Show'
            Sarah Okane Fine Art, London Art Fair. Porthminster Gallery, St Ives. St Annes Galleries,              Lewes.

2014  Sarah Okane Fine Art, London Art Fair. Porthminster Gallery, St Ives

            Hilton Fine Art, Bath. Zimmer Stewart Gallery, Arundel.

2013  St Annes Galleries, Lewes. Porthminster Gallery St Ives

2012  Four Square Fine Arts. London Art Fair. Four Square Fine Arts, London. 'Genius                              Loci', Four Square Fine Arts, London. Natue as Mind:Mind as Nature 
2011  Porthminster Gallery, St Ives. Chalk Hill Fine Art, Guildford
2010  Campden Gallery, Chipping Campden, Porthminster Gallery, St Ives.
           Chalk Hill Fine Art, Guildford, Sarah O'kane Fine Art, Lewes, Zimmer Stewart Gallery,                   Arundel and St Art Gallery, AAF Paris
2009   Porthminster Gallery, St Ives, Caxton Gallery, Whitstable, Sarah O'Kane Fine Art, Lewes                and Sarah O'kane Fine Art, AAF Amsterdam
2008   Campden Gallery, Chipping Campden, Zimmer Stewart Gallery, Arundel and
            Sarah O'kane Fine Art, AAF Amsterdam.

 

Exhibitions