Nick Goss (b. Bristol, 1981) is a British painter renowned for his figurative artworks that navigate between realism and surrealism. His paintings, born from photographic and archival sources, capture tangible moments while evoking a dreamlike ambiguity. Goss's works, characterised by their slow layering and subtle shifts, explore themes of memory, nostalgia, and the elusive nature of time, creating a unique blend of narrative and abstraction. With exhibitions across Europe and America and pieces in esteemed collections like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, his art continues to intrigue viewers with its enigmatic allure and emotional resonance.

In March 2024, some our Club members were invited to meet Nick in his bright East London studio where they saw his latest body of work and had the opportunity to hear him discuss his creative processes, stories and the concepts behind his art. Our editorial team caught up with him after to gain some exclusive insights into his practice.

Your paintings evoke a sense of ambiguity and surrealist elements. Can you explain how you navigate the relationship between the clear, identifiable elements of objects and environments and the more uncertain elements in your work?

I’m interested in establishing moments of clarity in each painting. Maybe an object or figure that emerges from the layers of paint, pattern and texture. Initially the viewer has something to latch onto, to recognise their surroundings, maybe they are in a bar or restaurant or looking out the window in an airport. Having set up that premise, I then enjoy placing incongruous or deceptive images from another time and place into the picture- setting up a dialogue between these disparate elements that asks the viewer to fill in the gaps and establish their own narrative.

Your works have been described as having an unreliable relationship to time, connected to memory and nostalgia. How does the exploration of time influence your artistic choices, and how do you navigate the balance between past and present in your paintings?

When I started to use the silkscreening in my work, that marked a point when the paintings started to allude to a slippage in time, where one section of the work would relate to the contemporary and another passage would hint towards another time altogether. I’ve enjoyed developing these ideas over the last couple of painting series. I’ve always liked the idea of the viewer being asked to negotiate with a painting and have been pleased in the past when my paintings have been mentioned alongside filmmakers in how an image can be cut up and threaded together to create transitions and unexpected continuities. The film editing term decoupage encapsulates the process in that you can splice images from the past, present and future together and set up a relationship or dialogue between them.

Could you discuss the significance of the locations and experiences that serve as the starting points for your paintings? How do you choose these subjects, and what draws you to particular environments or archival images?

The starting point is usually something catching my eye when I’m out walking around the city, I’l try and take a snap of it on my phone or if that isn’t possible make an approximate sketch when I’m back in the studio. Often it's something glanced through a window of a shop or through a half opened door of a bar or restaurant. For this particular project I’m working towards, I knew I wanted to paint an Island, part fabled, part based on an observed place. A fictional world that eerily echoes a place that feels familiar to our own world.

The recent exhibition "Smickel Inn, Balcony of Europe" included new paintings and watercolours. Can you share insights into the thematic and visual elements explored in this exhibition, and how it represents your current artistic direction?

For the Smickel Inn, I visited my Dutch family home town of Rotterdam to retrace recollections of spending time there while growing up. I’m often drawn to places on the edges of other places, areas that are neither here nor there. Harbours, beaches, areas of departure, the snack bar perched on the edge of the North Sea seemed to encapsulate a lot of these themes.

What themes or concepts are you currently exploring in your art, and are there any upcoming projects or exhibitions that you're particularly excited about?

For this current series I have the working title ‘The Isle of Thanet’ in my head. The series considers what it’s like living on an Island, what that might mean at this point in time. Part fable, part based on observation I’m using images from around Margate in Kent to construct this world. What is an Island mentality? How does that relate to migration and our current political discourse?

I met with the Director of the Warburg Institute in central London and he has helped me track down images from their archive that would have existed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries when the Isle of Thanet actually existed. If everything stays on course I'll be showing the new series at Perrotin Paris, opening on Saturday August 31st 2024.

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