Nicholas Carras graduated from Edith Cowan University in 2000. The following year he was included in the prestigious Hatched exhibition at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, which showcases the best graduate student work from around Australia. This is his first solo exhibition, and indeed the first time that the public has had an opportunity to purchase this young artist’s innovative paintings.

Nicholas creates strong linear designs by dribbling paint, not with the abandon of Pollock, but with a more controlled, deliberate technique that nonetheless conveys movement and spontaneity. These large-scale, dynamic, and energetic abstract paintings, would be the centrepiece of any room. Most are strong coloured, with monochromatic backgrounds of red, green, blue, yellow or bright white. Contrasting colours are then applied to the surface, in one, two or more layers. There are also stunning combinations of simple black and white, or blue and white contrasts.

Nicholas wrote
“the work I create is often very diverse in structure, as certain paintings become labour intensive allowing more simplistic designs to eventuate in others. The pouring of paint is important in the construction of my work from the creation of reflective surfaces to hard edged forms. Though not site specific, my work is an amalgamation of the various forms and surfaces that I am constantly bombarded with, as my eyes have been trained to focus on certain elements within a visually chaotic world. From the reflection of a street light against a tile, to the hard edge lines of a skyscraper that is constantly being passed by organic human forms. My drawings allow me to formulate compositions of all these recorded images within my thoughts. Paintings originate from these sketches that are then transferred to canvas. These sketches then evolve through numerous applications of paint.”

*prices valid 2002