NICHOLAS LEES
Born 1967, Winchester, United Kingdom
Nicholas Lees in the studio.
Image courtesy of Ben Boswell.
Nicholas Lees is a British artist working in porcelain sculpture and works on paper. He studied Ceramics at the University of the West of England and the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff, and later completed an MPhil by project at the Royal College of Art in London in 2012. Before specialising in ceramics, Lees studied English and History at the University of Kent, an early influence on his reflective and exploratory approach to artmaking. Alongside his studio practice, he has contributed widely to higher education in the UK, teaching for many years at Bath Spa University and as a visiting lecturer at the Royal College of Art, UCA Farnham and Bath Spa University. He lives and works in Selborne, Hampshire.
Lees’ work has been exhibited widely in the UK and internationally, and is represented in major public and private collections including the Victoria and Albert Museum, York City Art Gallery, the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, the Westerwald Keramikmuseum in Germany and the Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche in Faenza. His awards include the Cersaie Prize at the Premio Faenza in Italy (2015), the National Sculpture Award from the Bluecoat Display Centre in Liverpool (2010), and the Desmond Preston Prize for Excellence in Drawing at the Royal College of Art (2012).
His practice is grounded in an intimate understanding of materials and process, combined with a sustained exploration of perception. Lees’ recent Orbit series investigates the boundary between sculpture and vessel, form and void, stillness and motion. Through the subtle interplay of light and surface, these works evoke the shifting conditions of seeing — an attempt to give tangible form to the transient and uncertain nature of visual experience.
Artist Statement
"I am interested in thresholds and boundaries and in the phenomenon of perception. My sculpture is an exploration of the boundary of presence of an object, the interplay between space occupied and space contained.
The experience of perception of the works is one that is ephemeral and shifting according to the interplay of light, space and body.
Ideas cannot be separated from the making of things. Just as perception is an interaction, so is the making: between head, hand, material and process. Skill comes in many guises and is important, but not an end in itself.
My works on paper are another material expression of the same concerns: playing with ink, paper, water and time." Nicholas Lees.
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