Nicolas Party certainly made the most of his invitation to exhibit at Inverleith House. The Swiss artist has made his mark on every available inch of the Georgian venue — including the seven gallery spaces, the corridors and even the stairwells — to present his collection Boys and Pastel. Party’s redecoration job involved the introduction of patterned murals which form the abstract backdrop to large-scale figurative canvases, with each room adopting it’s own individual thematic chapter.
The intervention has been designed to respond directly to the architecture of Inverleith House (part of Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh) and the surrounding grounds in a theatrical, stage-set manner. Boys and Pastel‘s backgrounds flit between moods and styles with alacrity, whether it be a dense and detailed charcoal forest or a primitive rocky landscape of flat colours and simple shapes. Party then sets about an investigation of classical painting genres such as portraiture and still lifes, which he re-imagines in a idiosyncratic style that both pokes fun at cliché and pays homage to the great names who helped popularise them. The exhibition runs until 28 June.
Installation views,
Nicolas Party: Boys and Pastel,
Inverleith House, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, 2015.
Photography, Michael Wolchover.
