David Nicholls
Blood Red Sun
‘While forests burn, the raven sits and watches as the sun turns to blood’
This piece was originally inspired by an oriental watercolour. I was drawn to its uncomplex and strong imagery. The raven has had strong cultural symbolism through the ages. In Chinese and Japanese cultures, it is seen as a messenger of the gods and represents the sun, as also in ancient Greece and Roman cultures, the sun, light and wisdom and in Norse mythology a raven symbolises the mind and intelligence. Apart from the ancient symbolism of the bird it has also gained a rather dark association and has been primarily associated with battlefields and its attributes as a scavenger conjure images of it picking over the remains of the dead.
The symbolism of the raven in this piece is a mixture of the elements mentioned. It speaks of death and destruction but also of hope. The raven, the messenger of the gods, is telling us to change our ways as the world burns beneath it. During its creation it became apparent to me that an environmental message was at its heart. With man’s relentless destruction of the environment and rapid climate change at the forefront of the news and the wildfires in California and Australia making headlines at the time. I added flames to represent this and they can be seen licking up from beneath a charred lifeless branch the raven sits upon. The raven is backed by a striking red sun and both immediately draw the eye. The background remains neutral and stark to represent a potential bleak future if we don’t change our ways to let the planet heal before it is too late.
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Bio
David works from his studio in Portland producing unique hand finished sculpture in a variety of materials. Sculpture over the years has ranged from one off, hand carved original pieces in stone and wood and small editions cast in bronze and aluminium to large pieces for a garden setting. His work encompasses themes such as growth, vitality and nature using carving, modelling and casting techniques whilst exploring a diverse variety of materials. After a trip to Barcelona many years back, inspired by the masterful architectural work of Anton Gaudi, David’s work took on a whole new direction. He had already been using found objects combined with clay to make cast textural reliefs but by using a combination of mixed Tesserae, ranging from glass tiles and dismantled costume jewellery to broken ceramic tiles and semi-precious stones. He delights in repurposing objects that would normally be stuck in a drawer for years or end up thrown away. You could say David is hooked on this ancient form of art and the beauty of Mosaic.
Since graduating in 2001 he has exhibited extensively around the country. His growing reputation in high quality work producing abstract sculpture has earned David various public and private commissions; one of which was for Dorset County Council.
Recent work represents a new direction in his artistic language. David hopes to produce work that is tactile, visual, stimulating to human senses and works in harmony with its surroundings.
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