Nicolas Party: Watercolor

Party’s new series of sumptuous sunsets and treescapes steeped in visionary splendor

This volume compiles nearly 50 recent watercolor paintings by Brussels- and Brooklyn-based Swiss artist Nicolas Party (born 1980). Party’s perennial subjects are familiar yet uncanny: the sunsets and tree-laden landscapes in Watercolor are transformed through vibrant jewel-toned palettes and unorthodox compositions. His idiosyncratic approach conjures an immersive and surreal environment that is at once steeped in art historical references (Milton Avery, Ferdinand Hodler, Felix Vallotton) and extraordinarily distinctive. Party reads trees and landscapes as constant markers, essential ingredients which always need to be used, referring to their storied lineage in visual culture. His watercolors emerge from this historical thicket: as he explains, I like imagining a forest made of all the trees ever painted.