nicholas nicola etchings

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GEOMETRY OF THE UNIVERSE.   

(Fenwick's Theorem). 

6" X 8" . B&W. aquatint. sugarlift. zinc plate. 

 After a few false starts this is the first etching along the theme of Australian landscapes that I am satisfied with although it was not to be predicted that it would turn out this way. A rather curious image which strangely I find satisfying. I am especially pleased with the aquatint which intimate the cosmos. It is based on a sketch of a large rock on a property near Yass (almost threeish hours towards Canberra from Sydney if you take it really easy) which friends graciously invited me to come along for a recent long weekend in late january (the Australia Day Long Weekend or as it is also becoming known: Survival Day or Invasion Day by many Aboriginal traditional descendants of this ancient land). I was doing a somewhat normal etching of the rock which was pictorially based on the drawing when as I was burnishing the plate after an initial bite to obtain further texture aspects of an outline started to emerge which corresponded with the shape of this large rock. I became intrigued. I decided to abandon the rock itself and focus on the line, stripping the image away to this essential element, to become a 'modernist image' with the 'absolute form' of each rock I stopped working on the plate and started a new one, focusing on redoing the outline to capture some sort of 'essence' which has - for me - turned out to be somewhat cosmological. I am pleased with the final aquatint texture which to me intimates the cosmos...and then there is this outline as if interrupting deep space etc. Thus this not predicted image truly intrigues me.  It has a philosophical aspect which I think is worthy to further explore. As for the etching's subtitle, well it was the birthday of an old friend when I did this print and simply acknowledging this with this off-beat subtitle. A bit like naming a star in the cosmos after yourself or someone you know. I think it provides this somewhat clinical image with an added dose of humanity. All the best. 

 EMERGING UNIVERSE. THREE FATES. (Merryville Rocks. Yass). 

12" X 4". B&W. aquatint. sugarlift. zinc plate. 

This image is based on a series of three sketches that I did on a property I went too with friends which is near Yass. I was with my friends and their daughter and explained I often viewed the natural terrain in cosmological terms. I was taken to these groupings of rocks that seemed to me to be jutting out of the large fields that surrounded them. I have 'collected' the three sketches together and using their outlines have produced this rather high contrast image. I had Robert Motherwell's Elegy to the the Spanish Republic images in mind when envisaging this work with its dramatic black white constrasts. The three fates refer to the Ancient Greek  mythological characters who can shape the destiny of human beings. The Universe and Fate as two overarching influences on the human condition. 

QUANTUM REFLECTION.

8" x 11.5. B&W. aquatint. sugarlift. zinc plate.

The same rock mirroring itself but if one looks closely there are differences that reflect the apparent randomness of the microscopic quantum world.  In this case one envisages the same 'absolute form' of the same rock which on closer inspection are both different. It entails how human perception can be different in perceiving not only 'absolute forms' in nature but in other aspects such as in relation to human knowledge as for example in the case of political belief where one may be absolute in what one believes when the actuality of one's politics may differ thus the ongoing tension/s that exist in ever active political human behaviour and the competition and compromises that exist between many differing political actors and their supporters etc.   

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