Biography

Born in West Sussex in 1983, Nicholas de Lacy-Brown was brought up and educated in Worthing on Britain’s South Coast. Although he never received any formal artistic training, Nicholas showed artistic promise from an early age. Painting a scene from each of Shakespeare’s 37 plays at the age of 13, Nicholas received his first exposure to local press and had his work publicly displayed across Sussex. Thereafter, while following a solely academic line at school, Nicholas continued to paint enthusiastically in his spare time, completing during his teenage years a collection of reflections on war, which were later displayed at Worthing Town Hall in commemoration of Remembrance Day, and later the considerable Le Paris Formidable canvas (2000, acrylic on canvas), generally regarded as the instigator of the Artist’s first serious attempt to execute a career in art. As the centrepiece to his collection on Paris and subsequently of his first solo exhibition held in Sussex in November 2000, the work is an exuberant and vivacious creation which exudes colour as iconic images explode from the canvas with energy and passion.

Leaving Sussex for London in 2002 at the age of 19, Nicholas instigated a period of work which came to reflect the enhancement and maturity of his mind in a new, older and more urbanised environment, as well as the colourful and active social life to which he was party. Images such as High Perspective (2003, acrylic on canvas) which illustrates the Artist’s first year in London, and the Joie de Vivre triptych (2005, acrylic on canvas) which embrace an ideal life of recreational indulgence, are typical of this period and were central to Nicholas’ first solo public exhibition, ‘Between Me and My Reflection’, which followed in 2006 in Sussex.

Receiving critical acclaim, and playing host to the Artist’s first substantial sales, ‘Between me and my Reflection’ considered the triple theme of self-reflection, conflict and memory, and held at its centrepiece his Picasso-parody, Segunda Guernica (2004, acrylic on canvas), a work which is both controversial and sensitively portrayed, a public statement and a historical document.

Encouraged by his first significant taste of public artistic success, Nicholas went on to develop a comprehensive and eclectic collection, the breadths of which can be understood upon browsing the galleries on this site. As the circumstances in his own life began to change, sometimes dramatically, his canvases began to reflect a more subdued and reflective eye, often representing the most sensitive and heart-wrenching of topics, albeit so under the guise of his trademark use of bold imagery and vivacious colour. From a collection brightened with a bold, entertaining romp through the agonies and ecstasies of heartbreak, adolescence and the drastic results of a serious accident sustained to his leg in the Spring of 2008, Nicholas’ recent works also extend to the delicate and successful handling of landscapes, from the moody and brooding Cityscapes (2007, oil on canvas) to the whimsical and intoxicating Venice collection (2008, oil on canvas).

Nicholas has now enjoyed a successful launch of his work in London, with his first solo London show opening to critical acclaim in the prestigious Arndean Gallery on London’s Cork Street in May 2008. This was followed shortly after by a solo opening gala exhibition in Belgravia’s new exhibition space, the Eaton Terrace Gallery, having been invited to exhibit to mark the opening of this new gallery. Nicholas is now pleased to be taking his work further afield, having been invited to exhibit in Paris in October 2008, proudly representing, as he does so, a fresh and vivacious new face of the British contemporary art scene abroad.
© C.Court/D.Crowbe