ARTIST TALK // Nic Mason

Hear from 2023 BRAGS Art Fair and BRAG collection artists each Saturday at 11am during the fair!

Join some of our region’s best artists as they discuss their work and practicing in the region.

Saturday 18 November — Jock Alexander
Saturday 25 November — Nic Mason
Saturday 2 December — Graham Lupp

The Art Fair is a fundraising exhibition for the gallery’s artistic program and collection, and is an exciting opportunity to support regional artists.

$5 donation, refreshments provided, RSVP essential, all welcome

About the Artist

Nic Mason is a visual artist who primarily utilises painting and drawing in her art practice. She lives and works in regional Australia on Wiradjuri Country.

"Recovered unnamed files felt like miracle treasures. Following a series of computer and backup failures resulting in the loss of many files including loved photos, I felt compelled to honour in paint some of the experiences reminded to me by some recovered photos.

With my interest in the theatre and physicality of playing in my painting process, I married two ideas. My new series of works commenced by painting twenty small painting props of memories and visions referenced from a batch of photos taken during my time living in France in 2017.  Some of the props are quite derivative of a photo, others loosely so and some are compilations referenced from a few photos mashed together. I then moved these painting props around in my studio space, on the walls, on the bookshelf, on the floor and even sitting on a chair ready for inclusions within painting scenes. The painting props become three things: small works within themselves; tools of process; and reference materials all in one.

This series of new paintings within paintings directly follows on from my exhibition of 2021 at Project Gallery 90, ‘Paintings within Paintings’. I continue to reference my paintings back within my new works. Only this time, I don’t reference previous works of mine, rather, I paint in the small painting props created within this series.  In one work within this series, I have painted a painting in a painting within a painting in another painting within the painting I am painting.

This series also directly follows from my exhibition ‘Cycle’, at Bathurst Regional Art Gallery in 2022.  From that exhibition a particular work has kicked off this new series.  It is an interior of the studio space I am working within.  My plan for it and new works in this series was to play with the materiality of paint leaving much of the yellow ground present in the work and incorporating a variety of mark making techniques including painted lines drawn back within the works. These forms of mark making keep me engaged in the painting process. Only after the completion of my initial work did I see the unconscious reference to Matisse’s ‘The Red Studio’, hence I titled my work ‘The Yellow Studio’.  With this loose reference to this French artist, it seemed apt that the photos I referenced for my props for this series were from my French experience. It also seemed timely to be weaving elsewhere into the now, with the possibilities of being elsewhere feasible again.

Building from several series, an iterative and playful process has given life to the works for this exhibition ‘From France to here’ where ‘The Yellow Studio’ is renewed."

About the Art Fair

An initiative of the Bathurst Regional Art Gallery Society Inc. (BRAGS Inc.), the 2023 BRAGS Art Fair is a fundraising exhibition for the gallery’s artistic programming and collection, featuring artworks for sale from both established artists and emerging talents.

Artworks are available to view and purchase in-gallery and online, in a curated display showcasing our region’s best contemporary art from artists based in the Bathurst Regional Council district and surrounding areas including the Blue Mountains, Lithgow, Oberon, Blayney, Cowra, Orange and Mudgee. Explore works in a range of mediums including painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, printmaking, ceramics, textiles, and more.

Image: Nicola Mason, Prop III France, oil on canvas, 13 x 18 x 4 cm. $450. Image courtesy the artist.