NICOLE STEVENSON is drawn to the coastline, the edges of land where communities have evolved, dependent on the sea and the shore. Wherever she is, she will seek out the harbour so when she was in Aberdeen, that is where she went. But once upon a time busy with fishing boats, Aberdeen harbour is now home to support vessels for the offshore oil and gas industry and to ferries for the North Isles. It is a bustling commercial port rather than a picturesque harbour.
We tried to persuade Nicole that Aberdeen can look glorious when the sun shines and the mica flecked granite sparkles, but visiting on a dreich grey day, we don’t think she was convinced.
Not much further north, along the Moray coast, is a very different prospect. Crovie, Gardenstown, Portsoy, Sandend — these she describes as a paradise to paint, with a different composition in every direction, revelling in 'the joy of creating beside the sea, as every sense is channeled into the brush, the atmosphere influencing the drying times and paint quality, the salt soaking into the paper.'
Nicole’s paintings all inform each other but her studio based work and her paintings en plein air have different qualities. She paints with water based media on watercolour paper when working on site. Her watercolours are immediate and instinctive responses to the light, colour and shapes in the harbours and coastal landscapes. The challenge is how to 'collect the clear air, the sparkling water, the many little boats, the seaside atmosphere, and distil it all into one painting. How to pull that world onto one sheet of watercolour paper.'
The elements themselves sometimes paint the paper. 'Every now and then, the salt spray comes over the harbour wall and paints the page with sea foam, lifting the semi dried paint and creating unique textures. Nothing in the studio could produce this I tell myself and battle on with more paint, more marks, until another shower of salt water crashes over the wall.'
'So I collect, again, a couple of perfect gables looking like twins, a collection of gables tied together, rising up in a perfect composition, an orange roof arranged amongst the blues and grays. The strong light highlights the colors in one direction and flattens them if you look the other way, the water refracts everything, bouncing the light back against the gables and giving a crystalline sparkle.'
Nicole's studio work is painted on wooden panels using many layers of acrylic paint and collage. As part of her process she collects and makes her own collage papers, employing many different printing and painting methods. These papers, together with the variety of paint applications, build rich layers of colours and patterns on the painting surfaces.
A touch of gold leaf here, an intricate pattern there, these are fantastically complex pieces which almost magically coalesce into wonderfully coherent compositions, full of life. She uses the house motif in her work to denote feelings of home, the creative world that we inhabit and make our own.
'To me it evokes a way of living from an earlier time when we made the things that we wanted and curated an environment that enriched our lives. A lifestyle choice that has come round again as we relearn the skills of recycling and repurposing. The motif is also a useful device to enable me to layer my paintings like Japanese bora fabric or freeform patchwork. I piece together patches of collage and paint to create depth and to suggest the passing of time.'
Nicole's paintings are absorbing, captivating and uplifting, a joy to spend time with.
NORTHERN TIDES — Seascapes and Harbour Paintings by HELEN L.ROBERTSON and NICOLE STEVENSON runs from 7 September to 5 October.
12.09.2024
