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Nigel Ashcroft (British, 1951)
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Nigel Ashcroft
Shadows and echoes, Mirepoix
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Biography |
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Born in Heemstede in 1951, Nigel Ashcroft spent his early childhood in Sweden, Eire and Holland. He came to England in 1965 at fourteen years of age to continue his education at Berkhamsted School. In 1969 he entered the Gloucestershire College of Art and Design in Cheltenham. |
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Ashcroft used his time at Art College to master the techniques of drawing and watercolour. Even at this early stage he envisaged a very personal form of art, which he was aware could only be achieved by endless trial and experiment. Whilst he certainly did not shun outside influence, Ashcroft wanted his vision and his direction to be totally his own. |
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By the late seventies, Ashcroft was beginning to find sufficient satisfaction in the results that he was achieving. With the growing confidence that followed, he began a series of group exhibitions to widen his experience. He showed regularly, starting at Festival Exhibitions in the West Country and the Royal West of England Academy. As his reputation grew he received invitations to take part in shows as far afield as Cardiff, Guernsey, the Dordogne, London (Royal Academy 1987) and the USA. |
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“I now paint exclusively in watercolour, which seems to me the most sympathetic medium for my methods of working. I paint slowly, building up washes to quite a high degree of density and detail, and generally work on a fairly small scale, though in recent years I have spent my summers in the Dordogne region of France and have also travelled to Greece, Italy and Spain. These visits have naturally influenced my choice of subject matter, although I find myself increasingly drawn towards still-life.” |
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Ashcroft has developed a brilliant eye for a subject, combined with an ability to design a composition that somehow seems to reach much further than the limits of the painting itself. Simple, everyday objects relate to other similar items, sometimes not actually included in the composition, but which are in some way apparent because the mind infers that they are nearby. A shadow cast across a wall by something unseen, or a reflection in a window, widens the imagination beyond the limits of the painting itself, thus allowing the viewer to become an onlooker as if he were present whilst the Artist was at work. Atmosphere, that most elusive of ingredients, is immediately apparent throughout, finally confirming Nigel Ashcroft’s position today as an artist of outstanding originality and talent. |
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Frost&Reed has been Nigel Ashcroft’s sole world agent for some twenty years now and look forward to continuing the relationship long into the future. |
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Exhibitions |
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1987 |
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Royal Academy London |
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