 |
Nicholas Wilton
Red Sea
2006
Mixed Media on panel
48 x 48 inches
Selby Fleetwood Gallery
|
|
 icholas Wilton's paintings reference a personal vocabulary of botanical forms, patterns and abstract designs. Wilton is the founder of the Artplane workshop, which provides artists, in the United States and abroad, with an insight into the principles of art making .
Nicholas Wilton was born in 1961 in California. He attended the College of Creative Studies at the University of Santa Barbara, California and received his Bachelor of Fine Arts with a focus on illustration from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena California in 1986.
His paintings have appeared on numerous book covers in the United States including the national bestseller "The Four Agreements" by Don Miguel Ruiz, which appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show. In August 2007 the United States Postal System will issue a first class stamp featuring his work.
Wilton had his first solo show at the Olga Dollar Gallery in San Francisco during the early 90’s. His paintings are currently represented by Dolby Chadwick Gallery in San Francisco, CA and Selby Fleetwood Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Wilton is in many private and corporate collections including Birkenstock, Beringer Wine, Celebrity Cruise Line and the Shinsei Bank in Japan. He has received awards from the Marin Arts Council, Communication Arts, Print Magazine, New York Art Directors Club, A.I.G.A, RSVP Directory, and American Illustration.
Wilton lives in northern California with his wife and two daughters.
Nicholas Wilton: I think it’s really interesting what Art Interview Online Magazine is doing because you give access to in-depth information on artists, which normally is very difficult to find. Artists tend to work alone in their studios and it’s really very helpful for them and patrons to understand the processes involved and the investments that are required to be successful in the arts.
Art Interview: Your initial investment was to attend the Art Center College in Pasadena and the College of Creative Studies in Santa Barbara. How did these schools compare to each other?
 |
Nicholas Wilton
Summer Bloom
2006
Mixed Media on Panel
40 x 38 inches
Selby Fleetwood Gallery |
|
Nicholas Wilton: I felt there were talented teachers at the College of Creative Studies in Santa Barbara but there were huge gaps in the program.
They were interested in purely conceptual ideas. They did not really provide a foundation in drawing, painting or color theory. It was almost as if they presumed that you would somehow figure these things out by yourself. Nothing was really taught in a way that was clear or made sense.
It takes years of hard work to learn how to paint and draw, which are crucial to making art. These basic foundations just weren’t available there. So I ended up going to the Art Center and it was much more rigorous and regimented: there were a set number of years that you had to draw before you started painting.
I loved going to school and I loved experiencing the teachers, but there was so much baggage attached from the work they had done themselves. That information wasn’t as useful as the principles and ideas they were teaching.
It was a lot of work in the beginning, but the hard work started paying off. In the beginning it was a bit stifling creatively, but after a few semesters, you got caught up with it and it became liberating in the end.
I learned so much technique that it was initially distracting. One can confuse technique for ideas. So you have to learn how to let go of that once it’s been learned. I’m personally interested in paint, texture, surface and process. I still use a lot of the ideas and techniques I learned, but don’t rely on them per se, as I did in the beginning.
 |
Nicholas Wilton
Zocolo Gallery |
|
Art Interview: How long did it take you before those concepts settled down and you began to find your own style?
Nicholas Wilton: I took my classes at school quite seriously. I wasn’t one of the students that had a very clear idea of where he was going, but I worked hard and I tried to please all of my teachers, perhaps a little too much. When I came out of school I was skilled and I had an impressive body of work, but I didn’t know where I was going.
What changed my work more than anything was that my wife and I traveled for a year around the world. I was moved by a lot of what I saw. I had a sketchbook that I used all through the trip to formulate ideas, communication principles, universal ideas and symbols that I kept seeing. Primitive work, from ancient cave drawings to Indonesian sculptures and carvings seemed very powerful to me and they have affected my work. When I came back I tried to re-interpret what I had seen with a contemporary view in painting. That was how I started settling into my style.
Art Interview: Did you work before you went on your trip?
 |
Nicholas Wilton
Cover illustration for "Feathers and Fools" by Mem Fox
Publisher: Harcourt Children's Books
ISBN: 0152004734
ISBN-13: 9780152004736
|
|
Nicholas Wilton: Yes, we worked in New York for a year before moving back to California. I was doing illustrations for magazines and book covers, which is what I was trained in at the Art Center College. That was helpful because it provided me with money without my having to hold a second job. I was still making art, still finding my way, but I was getting paid for it. I never had a 9 to 5 job, so I was able to paint my own work, which was shown in the galleries, and I did commissions for people, as well.
Art Interview: Do you still illustrate for publishers?
Nicholas Wilton: Occasionally, at one point I thought that I would stop illustrating entirely because my dream was always to paint for myself. Illustration is quite a different process because it’s based on collaboration. But I realized that I really enjoyed making work that involved communicating ideas and found that one art form complemented the other.
Art Interview: Were you working as an illustrator while you were studying?
Nicholas Wilton: No, in school I had a highly enjoyable time just making my own work. It was harder when I got out of school, because I had to support myself, which limited how much artwork of my own I could produce. Forcing the time to paint into my life was a very difficult and slow process. I had to be really disciplined just to keep up with a pace that was productive enough to create artwork for galleries and collectives.
 |
Nicholas Wilton
White Boat
2005
Mixed Media on Panel
16 x 13 inches
Selby Fleetwood Gallery
|
|
Art Interview: When was your first gallery experience?
Nicholas Wilton: When I started out I was showing my art in local coffee shops, furniture showrooms and various other places. I had my first solo show at the Olga Dollar Gallery in San Francisco about 15 years ago. That was probably the first real exhibition that I took part in.
Art Interview: And how did you manage to get into that gallery?
This oral history transcript is the result of a tape-recorded interview with Nicholas Wilton on October 17, 2005. The interview took place over the telephone between Berlin, Germany and San Geronimo, California, USA and was conducted by Brendan Davis for Art Interview Online Magazine.
|
