FIELD SYSTEMS / STREET WORKS

FIELD SYSTEMS / STREET WORKS 2005 – 2009

Nick Rands, b. 1955 Chester, UK.

Studied Fine Art at Reading University and Art Education at Bristol University/Bristol Polytechnic.

Taught art in UK and Botswana before working as art-gallery education officer. In 1992 he was Southern Arts-Brazil Exchange artist to Porto Alegre, Brazil. Moved to Brazil in 1998, and in 2016 moved to Caunes-Minervois, France.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2022

3000 e outras terras

Galeria Gestual, Porto Alegre RS Brazil

Line by Line Peintures / Dessins 1992 - 2022

La Table des Vignerons, Trausse, France

Rue Joseph Sicard, Caunes Minervois, France

Ausência

L’anciennne boulangerie, Caunes Minervois, France

Hillfield/Arborizada

Rue Joseph Sicard, Caunes Minervois, France

2021

Dix terres a la recheche d’un système perdu

Rue Joseph Sicard, Caunes Minervois, France

Greencat gallery, Caunes Minervois, France

2018

Lost Rivers Mosaic Paintings

8 Melior Street, London, UK

Horizontes Terrestres revisited

Galeria Gestual, Porto Alegre RS, Brazil

2017

Horizontes Terrestres

ESPM, Porto Alegre, Brazil

2016

Ausência

Galeria Gestual, Porto Alegre RS, Brazil

2015

Neckinger River Levels

Bermondsey Yard, London

2012

Um Quadrado no Rio Grande do Sul

Museu Júlio de Castilhos, Porto Alegre, Brazil

2011

Um Quadrado no Rio Grande do Sul

Museu de Arte de Santa Maria, Santa Maria, Brazil

A Gente

Museu do Trabalho, Porto Alegre RS, Brazil

2009

ChromaLife

Galeria Gestual, Porto Alegre RS, Brazil

2008

ChromaLife

The Brick House, Brick Lane, London

2007

Obras Fotográficas

Galeria Gestual, Porto Alegre RS, Brazil

2005

…and still counting…

Bermondsey Street Studio, London

Galeria Gestual, Porto Alegre RS, Brazil

2004

Painting by Numbers

Galeria Gestual, Porto Alegre RS, Brazil

2003

Where the sea meets the sky

Fotogaleria, Porto Alegre Brazil

2001

Mud Works

Espaço Cultural Sérgio Porto, Rio de Janeiro, RJ Brazil

Fundação Cultural de Criciuma, Criciuma SC Brazil

Pinturas

Fundação Cultural de Curitiba, PR Brazil

Casa de Cultura Mario Quintana, Porto Alegre RS. Brazil

Earthly Spheres

The Winchester Gallery, Winchester, UK

2000

Pinturas

Pinacoteca da Feevale, Novo Hamburgo, RS, Brazil

Eye Levels

Galeria Iberê Camargo, Usina do Gasômetro, Porto Alegre,

1999

Esferas Terrestres

Torreão, Porto Alegre, Brazil

1998

Earthly spheres

Warehouse, Norwich, UK

Watching the waves/Sowing the seed

Windsor Arts Centre Windsor, UK

1996

Grizedale Forest Painting residency

Gallery in The Forest, Grizedale, UK

Line by Line

Evreham Iver, Bucks, UK

1995

Line by Line

Isambard Brunel School. Portsmouth, UK

1994

Line by Line

The Peveril Centre. Eastleigh, UK

Atrium Gallery. Bournemouth University UK

Windrush Leisure Centre, Witney Oxon, UK

Bridgemary Community School, Gosport, UK

South Hill Park Arts Centre. Bracknell, UK

1992

Staying in Line

Bedales Gallery, Petersfield, UK

Upstairs Gallery, Upton Park. Dorset, UK

Instituto de Artes UFRGS Porto Alegre, R.S. Brazil

1982

Photographic Pieces/Timed Activities

Axiom Centre, Cheltenham, UK

GROUP SHOWS

2022

Haverá consequências

Fundação Vera Chaves Barcellos, Viamão-RS Brazil

Digital graffiti 2022

Alys Beach, Florida USA

2020

du neuf à Caunes

Caveaux de l’abbaye, Caunes Minervois, France

2019

Ailleurs

La Tuilerie Saint Joseph, La Livinière, France

2017

Paintings from somewhere else

Youngblood, Cape Town, South Africa

2016

Digital Graffiti 2016

Alys Beach, Florida USA

2015

Ocupando Lucas 21

Galeria Gestual, Porto Alegre RS Brazil

2013

Magmart | international videoart festival

Casoria Contemporary Art Museum, Naples, Italy

Digital Graffiti 2013

Alys Beach, Florida USA

7 Billionth Citizen

Townhouse Gallery, Cairo, Egypt

Solent Showcase Gallery, Southampton, UK

Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK

Mamute Galeria, Porto Alegre, Brazil

2012

Des | Estruturas

Fundação Vera Chaves Barcellos, Viamão, Brazil

2011

8th Mercosul Biennial

Porto Alegre/RS Brazil

2010

Digital Graffiti

Alys Beach, Florida USA

DIGIT 2010

Narrowsburg, New York, USA

Silêncios e Sussuros

Fundação Vera Chaves Barcellos, Viamão, Brazil

2006

Um olhar fotográfico

Fundação Vera Chaves Barcellos, Porto Alegre, Brazil

2004

Heterodoxia

MASC Florianópolis – SC Brazil

1+1+1

Museu da Gravura, Bagé, RS Brazil

2003

1+1+1

Galeria Gestual, Porto Alegre RS Brazil

Um território da fotografia

Galeria dos Arcos, Usina do Gasômetro, Porto Alegre,

III Salão National de Arte de Goiás

Goiania, GO Brazil

24º Salão de Arte de Riberão Preto

Riberão Preto, SP Brazil

2002

III Salão de Porto Alegre

Usina do Gasômetro Porto Alegre RS Brazil

II Salão National de Arte de Goiás

Goiania, GO Brazil

II Salão de Arte

UNI-BH, Belo Horizonte, MG Brazil

Forest

The Southern Arts Touring Exhibition Service, UK

2000

Bah-zart

Obra Aberta Porto Alegre RS Brazil

II Salão de Porto Alegre

Usina do Gasômetro, Porto Alegre

1999

Chart

Angel Row Gallery, Nottingham, UK.

Coletiva

Obra Aberta, Galeria Chaves, Porto Alegre

1998

Sticks

The Southern Arts Touring Exhibition Service, UK.

1997

The Space of the Page

Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, UK.

1996-7

Repetition

Corn Exchange Newbury, UK

Winchester Gallery, UK

The Gantry, Southampton UK

Milton Keynes Crafts Guild UK

Artsway, UK

Nuova Icona, Venice, Italy

Cacco Zanchi, Aalst, Belgium

1995

Words

Aspex Gallery Portsmouth, UK

Artspace

Square Tower Portsmouth, UK

1994

Art Kites

Milton Keynes Kite Festival. Milton Keynes, UK

1993

On Paper

Contact Gallery, Norwich, UK

Repetere

Solar dos Camara, Porto Alegre RS Brazil

1992

East End Open Studios

Deborah House, Hackney, London, UK

1990

Artists in Botswana

National Gallery of Botswana. Gaborone, Botswana

1984

R.W.A. Annual Exhibition,

Royal West of England Academy, Bristol, UK

1982

Group Photography 2

Axiom Centre, Cheltenham, UK

1978

Wessex Artists

Southampton City Art Gallery, UK

110-page book

Muddy hands mark a blank surface.This ‘primitive’ gesture is followed by rationally drawn lines repeating the previous movement. From the beginning the work deals with opposite forces which stay harmoniously together. Chance and absence of design are contrasted with decision and action over it. The shapes made by parallel lines have a kind of pulsation as a latent action. The lines are made in a regular sequence of gestures, as a dance of which we can see only the traces; this rhythm is recorded on the surface. The energy is distributed equally and symmetrically. The body’s marks are the first pattern to be followed and one of the determinants of the work. With the body as a factor of proportion the resulting shapes are in equilibrium.

The process of repeating just a few elements results in work whose essence is clarity. Simple gestures, movements and lines are repeated to constitute a unity. Every line is meant to be as similar as possible to the previous one; however, this act produces small variations which are also part of the process.The movement is repeated but never identical, as a breath that is constant but never the same.

The choice of non-processed materials like mud and crude oil is related to the choice of pure and basic elements.The colours derive from the nature of the chosen material and the place where it was found rather than from any pictorial decision, as the drawings result from simple movements rather than from any descriptive activity.

The repetition of simple elements may suggest a purely minimal approach to making pictures. In these works, however, the variations and accidents of chance give each work a life and nature of its own.

Maria Lucia Cattani 1994

I use ordinary materials; those discarded from industry and those found in nature. I have used mud, engine oil, soot, differential oil (a very sickly smell) and the tar found on beaches.

I wanted to make pictures which had little to do with anything (I thought) except the movement of my hand, arm, body and the repetition of gesture – the only things one can be certain about.The pictures develop a rhythm of breathing and grow as nature. In tracing my line across the surface, I assert my presence and space in the same way (perhaps) as a young child making its first drawings. Sometimes the repetition leads almost to a trance, like the rhythm of a drummer or the repeated steps of a dancer.

The starting point for the pictures is the scale of the body: the height of one’s reach, the stretch of the arms, and the movement of limbs.There is no intended illusion of scale.The pictures are as big or small as the body and gesture that makes them.

They are not pictures ‘of ’ anything. They are records of an activity – the repeated movement of the human body – traces of movement through time.The arm rotates on its axis, or is disciplined in horizontal or vertical activity. Very few decisions have to be made – where to start, where to finish, when to reload the brush, whether to compensate for the irregularities which may occur, for instance in the drawing of a circle, or to let the shapes grow organically according to elements of chance.

I seldom know how a picture will look before I start. A few simple ‘rules’ are fixed - then it is simply a matter

of ‘performing’ the picture. It is always a surprise at the end, and the same rules can be repeated over again with different results.

Nick Rands 1994

If I stretch my arms next to the rest of myself and wonder where my fingers are - that is all the space I need as a painter.

Willem de Kooning.What Abstract Art MeansTo Me. 1951

Why have I blackened my square with a pencil? Because it is the humblest act the human sensibility can perform.

Kasimir Malevich

If the supply of working materials runs out, go down to

the beach and make lines in the sand with a bamboo stick, draw on the dry ground with a stream of piss, draw in the empty air the pattern of birdsong, the sound of water and wind and cartwheels and the humming of insects, and let the wind and water sweep it all away afterwards, but act from the conviction that all these pure devisings of my mind will magically and miraculously find an echo in the minds of others.

Joan Miró

.... I have always maintained that you did not need complicated and expensive apparatus to produce a work of art. You could go in the back yard and scrape up some mud and put it on some board the builders had left behind.

Roger Hilton 1974