GARY NISBET

 

As a young artist I apprenticed with the master muralist Anthony Heinsbergen working on the restoration and decoration of historical landmark buildings. My days were spent scraping through layers of paint and metallic leaf revealing decades of images layered one over the next. The richly textured surfaces represented an accumulated history and legacy that I found beautiful and personally resonant. The narrative created by applying newly rendered images over aged and layered areas has become the context of my work as an artist.

My work begins on a base of layered collage recalling the history of those surfaces. The paintings feature forms drawn from the domestic realm of home, garden, library and table. In them I explore the themes of growth and nurture, cycles of life and family. Connection, rhythm, ceremony, purpose, belonging; the newly formed arrangements painted over the history of collaged surface seems an appropriate juxtaposition to represent everyday life.