112 MUSIC & ARTS
NICK WILLIAMS BRINGS VIBRANT COLOUR, TEXTURE & MAGIC REALISM TO CONTEMPORARY FIGURATIVE PAINTING
Cornish artist Nick Williams creates richly textured oil paintings that transform colour, atmosphere and imagination into immersive visual worlds, inviting the viewer to admire the painting’ s aesthetics, whilst at the same time exploring the story they tell.
BETWEEN MEMORY AND IMAGINATION: INSIDE THE VIVID WORLD OF NICK WILLIAMS From the Cornish landscape to distant places remembered and imagined, artist Nick Williams creates richly textured paintings that occupy a space somewhere between reality and the world of dreams.
There is something immediately transporting about the work, where colour is layered upon colour, familiar landscapes become slightly otherworldly and figures emerge from the richly worked surfaces that bear the physical traces of their making.
Born in London but based in Cornwall for forty years Williams creates contemporary figurative paintings that draw on memory and imagination rather than seeking to reproduce the world exactly as it appears.‘ I’ m trying to create a sense of place and atmosphere. I’ m hoping to convey a feeling of mystery and uncertainty within the narrative of the painting’.
It is this space between the familiar and the imagined that gives Williams work its distinctive quality.
An abandoned building, an empty room or a sun-drenched landscape might provide the starting point, but through colour, texture and storytelling and some subtle social commentary the scene evolves into something less literal- a remembered or imagined world that invites the viewer to construct a story of their own.
A DISTINCTIVE WAY OF PAINTING Williams has developed his visual language independently, choosing not to follow the traditional art school route. Working mainly in oil paints, his process is intuitive and highly physical: layers of paint are built up, sanded back, reworked and layered again, creating surfaces that give the paintings a tactile presence.
His influences range from Vuillard and Velasquez to Van Gogh, Vermeer, Anselm Kiefer, Paula Rego, Peter Doig and Banksy. Yet the resulting work is unmistakably his own- combining traditional figurative painting with elements of magic realism and an intense often unexpected use of colour.
That willingness to experiment extends beyond the canvas. In his studio, where the gargantuan plants have created a jungle like effect, delicate collages and an assortment of curious sculptures are to be found among the many oil paintings. Snakeskins from his two beloved corn snakes have also found their way into the work.
A WORLD OF HIS OWN Williams studio, once a stable, sits within Trelan gardens in Lelant, near St Ives. Over the past fifteen years he has transformed the long neglected grounds into an exuberant tropical landscape of towering echiums, palms, ferns and meandering paths.
Amongst it sits one particularly unexpected creation:‘ The Avenue of Tortured Souls’, a twenty metre installation fashioned from a hundred and eighty twisted roots of the Echium pininana, embedded into the ground.
The connection with his paintings is difficult to miss. There is the same attraction to texture and transformation, the same willingness to take something familiar and make it strange. Inside the studio the paintings develop slowly, often over years. Outside the garden continues to evolve at its own pace.
Williams has shown his work in solo Exhibitions in Cornwall and London, and his paintings can be found in private collections around the world.
DISCOVER THE WORK OF NICK WILLIAMS Explore the latest collection of paintings, enquire about private commissions or arrange a studio visit nickgwilliams. com | Instagram @ nickgwilliams60
THE ART OF LUXURY ISSUE 78 2026