South African-born Nic Fredman returned to Cape Town after spending 28 years in London. His latest work is something of a love letter to his journey of place, dubbed “Nic Fredman: A Retrospective.” This journey of place refers not only to various locations, but also to the idea of inspiration and being stuck in lockdown’s gaze.
The vision presents two decades of oil paintings and mixed media.
“They are an emotional response to landscape that has meaning to me about where I exist in the world, Nic says.
The pieces on show include small panoramic landscapes, with works dating back to 2003 (Nic’s return to the Cape) and more recent creations focused on the past three years.
The works have logo of four themes: ‘Small Landscapes’, ‘The Dark Rooms’, ‘Woodstock Anthills’ and ‘Aretefacts and Reconstructions’.
While ‘The Dark Rooms’ reflects London and the influence of Victorian doll houses, ‘Small Landscapes’ have an inspiration that captures my heart, writes Cape {town} Etc’s Ashleigh Nefdt.
Small Landscapes depict a return to the fundamental bearing within oneself, particularly within the artist’s self, as Nic expresses as per Art Times. More beautifully, the landscapes reflect a need to simply the process.
“I had seen a small Breughel landscape in a museum and was knocked out [by] how such a small painting could carry such a sense of largeness.”
He expresses that many of the works were started in London while his daughter was being treated for Lymphoma. The work was easier to carry back and forth. Covid allowed him to finishes the pieces.
Throughout his life, Nic has called many places home before settling in the Mother City. He completed his under-graduate art studies at Central, Hornsey for one, and also spent some time in Amsterdam when studying printmaking at the Reijks Akademie in Amsterdam. He got his post-graduate degree in London at the Slade School of Fine art, and his art and musings have travelled with him along the way. In 2003, he set up a little studio at ‘The Old Breweries’, Woodstock.
If you’d like to step outside of yourself and into the world of another, his work’s will be on display at Spin Street Gallery, 6 Spin St, Cape Town, from 30 October to 30 November 2021.
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Picture: Supplied