Beyond the Path: New Paintings by William Nichols

William Nichols’ paintings have always represented a paradox of styles and techniques. At once gestural and impressionistic, as well as nearly photo-realistic, they fall into a category completely their own. The scale and the up-close intimacy of his scenes create the sense that one is standing squarely in the landscape, rather than observing it from a vista or approaching it frontally. However, while this perception of immersion gives his paintings a feeling of unmistakable reality, his rapid and gestural application of paint imparts a sensual and tactile awareness of the canvas surface that is sometimes quite surprising. The result is always a sophisticated combination of strength, structure and subtlety.

While his subjects are innately beautiful, Nichols’ keen and singular sensibilities allow him to reveal the underlying toughness or edge in the landscapes that both embrace and reveal their beauty yet transcend the sentimental and merely pretty - a rare gift that has set him apart amongst most other landscape painters during his nearly forty year exhibition history. In that time, his work has garnered him international attention from collectors, critics and museums alike, including a retrospective at the Butler Institute of American Art and inclusion in exhibitions in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts in Kaohsiung, Taiwan; the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, Oklahoma; the Milwaukee Art Museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; the Boise Art Museum in Boise, Idaho; and the Tampa Museum of Art in Tampa, Florida, among others.