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, 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 private 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. Nicholas, in several carefully considered pieces, captured the essence of an entire city; the luminosity of the paintings echoing the vivacity of this city of light.

Leaving Sussex in 2002 to study law at King’s College London meant that the opportunities to paint became scarcer. As his academic pursuits gained credence, Nicholas satiated an intellectual drive by following his degree with a Masters in Medical Law and Ethics and later the Bar Vocational Course in 2007. Nevertheless, those canvases painted during this period began to reflect the enhancement of Nicholas’ legal mind, as well as the colourful and active London life to which he was party. Images such as ‘High Perspective’ which illustrates the Artist’s first year in London, and the ‘Joie de Vivre Collection’ 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‘Segunda Guernica’, a work which is both controversial and sensitively portrayed, a public statement and a historical document.

Encouraged by his first taste of public artistic success, Nicholas went on to develop the collection which we see hanging before us today. 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 often under the guise of his trademark use of bold imagery and vivacious colour.


And so to Nicholas’ latest exhibition, ‘Sebastian’s Arrows’, a reflection on themes such as betrayal and heartbreak, where undoubtedly the most relevant piece is ‘Nicholas in the Renaissance’, which deals with his time on BBC1’s ‘The Apprentice’. The collection is a bright, bold, entertaining romp through the agonies and ecstasies of heartbreak, adolescence and internal conflict and it is exciting to see Nicholas’ delicate and successful handling of landscapes, from the moody, brooding and exotic ‘Cityscapes’ to the whimsical and intoxicating ‘Venice’ collection. His work remains bold, fearless and exciting, rather like the artist himself, but there is a subtlety in works such as ‘Seascape III: Silver Surfer’ which reveals an artist who is confident and comfortable with his craft.

Sebastian’s Arrows will no doubt be remembered to some extent because of Nicholas’ associations with television, however it should be remembered because of the pure joy and delight the artist clearly takes in his craft. Each composition is not only creatively conceived, but exuberantly realised, and for this alone should Nicholas de Lacy-Brown be known foremost as an Artist, then a man of the Law, and finally as a contestant in The Apprentice.

© C.Court/D.Crowbe