Opening Event Saturday 15 September 1pm – 3pm in our top floor Gallery. All warmly welcome.
The understanding and sense of place we have within our immediate lived landscapes often gets reflected in what’s known as edgelands, liminal spaces mediating the transition from the rural to the natural worlds. Even within cityscapes there are still spaces such as parks, allotments and waste ground, all be it on a smaller scale, where this process can be found.
These hidden and overlooked environments are what captures Nic Gears imagination, whilst out walking, in a strategy of repetition, as he discovers the ways in which we grapple with appreciating the value of the world in which we live.
Nic has lived in both urban and natural environments, from London to rural Staffordshire. Through the influence of his late Grandfather, Gerald, Nic has developed a culture of walking, which draws him particularly into ‘edgeland’ landscapes where he is most creatively inspired.
Having always collected photos, debris, natural objects and found text whilst walking Nic has extended his practice at College then University and in 2015 completed a Masters in Fine Art, with a project title of ‘Walking the past in the present, influencing the future’.
Drawing on and drawing with the materiality of the landscape summarises Nicks work, from using collected oak apples to make ink for ‘language and contour mark making’, to using found debris in making relief sculptures, and combining photographic prints with mark making. These techniques are also used to consider notions around ‘mapping’ and the ‘reality’ of what we do and don’t see.
Nics work has featured at St Johns College Library, Cambridge celebrating the life of Wordsworth in 2013, at the Dove Cottage Wordsworth Museum, Grasmere, in 2015, and at Lancaster Universities ‘Words Festival’ 2017.
Nic lives and works on the outskirts of Nottingham traversing the liminal spaces of the city continuing to pinpoint and make connections between our past and present.
