Nick McPhail

Region: Pacific Coast

 My practice is based around everyday occurrences that reside in our periphery. In that sense I’m also interested in attention and focus, and where it is allocated. My work employs overlapping textures and disorienting compressions of space, with a focus on distorting the perception of foreground and background. While I source imagery from photographs that I take, my paintings are not tied to a specific location and are often equally dependent on memory, layering of multiple images, and abstraction. I’m intrigued by how we navigate spaces, and how architecture restricts and commands our movement and vision using stairs, walls, fences and entryways; and therefore these elements are frequently the subject matter of my work.