*1970 Montreal, Canada – lives in New York and Berlin

Although the style and colour palette of the paintings and drawings of the Canadian-born David Nicholson bear a resemblance to the works of the Old Masters, they are unquestionably modern. Traditional culture juxtaposed with modernity is the starting point for his work.

He has no educational background in the arts. He is a self-taught artist who acquired the techniques and aesthetics of the masters of the past, with Peter Paul Rubens, Egon Schiele, and Gustav Klimt as his role models. He finds inspiration in the works and the spirit of the past, which he endeavours to project onto the present. He is interested, among other things, in finding ways to transpose a single element from an old work into a modern painting. The pictorial world of the internet and depiction of women by his role models – Rubens, Klimt, and Schiele – are equally valuable sources of inspiration for his artistic process. This way, he comments on other pieces of art as well as on current topics such as the ideals of beauty, sexuality, and pornography.