Nicolas Party

Swiss born visual artist, Nicolas Party, has achieved critical acclaim for his colour saturated paintings and murals that both challenge and celebrate conventions of painting. The power of paint is used as a mechanism to alter ones perception of environments. Through a multitude of mediums, including manipulating the very gallery space the works exist in, Nicholas Party creates a fantastical pastel hued universe filled with rounded, wide-eyed figures and geometric landscapes. 

Born in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1980, Party studied at the Lausanne School of Art, before going onto further education at the Glasgow School of Art, where he received his MFA. Growing up in Switzerland, the natural world of leafy green landscapes has had a continued impact on Party’s visual language. Works have exceptional degrees of intensity and fluidity, transforming objects into abstracted, biomorphic shapes. Party displays a universe of fantastical characters and motifs where perspective is continuously challenged. 

Party has also ventured into sculpture and installation works, including painted busts and body parts connoting to the fragmented ruins of ancient Greece and Rome. His early interest in graffiti art and murals has also lead to a particular interest in the presentation and installation of his works - A recent exhibition at the Hirshhorn, displayed Party’s largest work to date. ‘Draw the Curtain’, envelopes around temporary scaffolding, encasing the Museum building, spanning a circumference of 829ft - which he manipulates to subvert conventional perspective.

Nicolas Party has exhibited internationally, including recent solo exhibitions at Montreal Museum of Fine Arts; MASI Lugano; and Magritte Museum in Brussels. He is represented by Hauser and Wirth, including known smaller galleries such as The Modern Institute. In 2020, he had his first solo exhibition with Hauser and Wirth, named ‘Scottsboro”.