When two worlds collide. Pigment and waste oil on paper, 180 x 210 cm,1988
When two worlds collide. Pigment and waste oil on paper, 180 x 210 cm,1988
Untitled. Pigment and waste oil on paper, 160 x 160 cm, 1988
Clap hands. Pigment and waste oil on paper, 160 x 180 cm, 1988
2 half circles. Mud and waste oil on paper, 40 x 60 cm, 1989
2 half circles. Mud on wall, 160 x 180 cm. Molepole, Botswana, 1989
Dialogue 2. Mud and waste oil on board, 100 x 200 cm, 1989
Parting. Mud and waste oil on paper, 40 x 50 cm, 1989
Parting 2. Mud and wate oil on board, 40 x 60cm, 1989
Line by line 2. Mud and waste oil on paper, 140 x 240 cm, 1990
Allypolly. Mud and waste oil on canvas, 172 x 172 cm, 1990
No wind. Mud and waste oil on canvas, 180 x 200 cm, 1991
2 down. Mud and waste oil on canvas, 140 x 180 cm, 1992
Right down left up. Mud and waste oil on canvas, 150 x 180 cm, 1991
To the end of the line. Mud and waste oil on canvas, 140 x 210 cm, 1991
Up down nonstop. Mud and waste oil on canvas, 132 x 210 cm, 1991
2 half circles 2. Mud and waste oil on canvas, 180 x 210 cm, 1992
4 ways around. Mud and waste oil on paper, 4 x 100 x 100 cm, 1992
Cross square in. Mud and waste oil on canvas, 210 x 210 cm, 1992
Cross square out. Mud and waste oil on canvas, 200 x 200, 1992
Capoiera. Mud, graphite and waste oil on canvas, 200 x 200 cm, 1992
Learning to fly. Mud and waste oil on canvas, 210 x 210 cm, 1992
Itaimbezinho. Mud, graphite and waste oil on canvas, 210 x 210 cm, 1992
Between up and down. Mud, graphite and waste oil on canvas, 140 x 210 cm, 1992
4 square 1. Mud and waste oil on paper, 60 x 60 cm, 1992
4 square 2. Mud and waste oil on paper, 60 x 60 cm, 1992
2 worlds 2. Mud and waste oil on canvas, 180 x 200 cm, 1993
2 worlds 3. Mud and waste oil on canvas, 184 x 210 cm, 1993
Itaimbezinhozinho. Mud, graphite and waste oil on paper, 180 x 52 cm, 1993
9 down. Mud and waste oil on paper, 180 x 42 cm, 1993
End of the line 2. Mud and waste oil on paper, 37 x 199 cm, 1993
Capoiera 2. Mud, graphite and waste oil on paper, 83 x 93 cm, 1993
Cross square in 2. Mud and waste oil on paper, 102 x 120 cm, 1993
Square cross. Mud and waste oil on paper, 102 x 120 cm, 1993
Between 2. Mud, graphite and waste oil on paper, 37 x 199 cm, 1993
Down. Mud, graphite and waste oil on paper, 170 x 37 cm, 1993
Down 2. Mud, graphite and waste oil on paper on canvas, 180 x 40 cm, 1993
The gull’s way and the whale’s way. Mud, graphite and waste oil on canvas, 190 x 210 cm, 1993
4 down. Mud and waste oil on paper, 60 x 90 cm, 1995
4 ways around 2. Mud, graphite and waste oil on panel, 4 x 100 x 100 cm, 1996
Circle circumference 2. Mud, graphite and waste oil on canvas, 180 x 180 cm, 1996
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
Sowing the seed, watching the waves. Mud on paper, 150 x 1000 cm, 1998
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
PHOTO: EDUARDO AIGNER