A selection of paintings and extremely detailed preparatory drawings by artist Nathan Walsh. While starting out firmly rooted in the “observable world,” Walsh’s artistic process involves shaping and manipulation in an effort to develop a new language of realist painting. Over the years, Walsh has built an archive of raw materials, objects and photographs, which he keeps in his studio — a converted Welsh methodist chapel where he lives and works. Living alongside his collection, Walsh creates urban landscapes with a hallucinatory quality of being “neither here nor there,” pulling from his own imagination as much as the physical references that surround him. Scenes that initially appear familiar do not operate according to the same laws that govern the real world. In “Metaphores,” for example, what starts as a view through a Parisian antique shop window, becomes a shifting stage of found objects, patterns, and invented reflections. The painting doesn’t mimic our world so much as reimagine it — offering a parallel space that operates according to rules of its own.

“Drawing plays an important aspect of my studio practice, from the visual notes I make on site to the complex blueprints that underpin my paintings. Instead of mimicking reality or photo based images these working drawings allow me to create an alternate reality built from a process of making then revising line and form. I use perspective not in a pre determined way but more as a free flowing strategy to develop composition. Textbook rules are assimilated but then manipulated and often rejected as the works develop. The subjects explored here lend themselves to a method of construction and deconstruction. The cafes, bus stops and museums are presented as composites of interior, exterior and reflected space. For all their exactitude, they are not fixed in nature but exist in multiple states at the same time.”

Check out more of Walsh’s work below!