Nigel Sense

As an artist I’ve always been drawn to painting the everyday. From characters in the workplace to finding joy in the mundane. I see my works as a social commentary and exploration of the human condition.

The works represent, among other things, visual overstimulation experienced when travelling. The feeling you get from waking up in a different bed every day and seeing everything for the first time. The shapes and lines are taken from snapshots of the day, from the lettering on a street sign in Bangkok, to the patterns on tiles of an old Chinese shop-house in Penang.

I had originally planned to paint this year in Cambodia, but my plans, like everyone else’s in 2020 were tipped on its head due to Covid-19. One week I was in Laos and the next found myself painting out of my in-laws house in the northern suburbs of Wollongong, NSW. It seemed ironic that my works were to be all about travelling when I found myself forced to remain in isolation in Australia.

Consequently a lot of the ideas I originally had in mind underwent a fundamental shift and in various ways the works have been affected. I can’t say how they would have turned out differently if they were painted in Cambodia. But I do know the emotions are more raw and less stable. Instead of living in, I was looking in, on the romanticism that comes from a long line of artistic tradition of working and drawing inspiration from a far flung country.