Nick Arroyave-Portela
My interest primarily with issues regarding identity is the main drive and focus for these wall pieces. I felt that by exploiting the qualities of clay and drawing on those literal connections with the earth I could start to explore the genre of landscape albeit from the perspective of above , as a means to express ideas about our connectedness to the land of our birth or and ancestors. These feelings come from a very primal instinct which I am more and more drawn to and feel have significant relevance in the world of today where the politics of home is an ongoing project. Where our connection to a sense of place has to be constantly renewed and recreated.
Quotation from ‘Isobars’ by Janette Turner Hospital
And what is an Isobar?
An Isobar is an imaginary line connecting places of equal pressure on a map. All lines on a map, we must acknowledge, are imaginary; They are ideas of order imposed on the sloshing flood of time and space. Lines on a map are talismanic and represent the magical thinking of quantitive and rational people.
These particular Isobars connect points where the pressure of memory exerts an equivalent force.
Born 1972 Oxford, England
Education
1991-94 Bath College of Higher Education, Bath
Awards
1998 Young Achievers celebration at Buckingham Palace
1997 One of six prizes awarded at Talente, Munich
1996 First prize, Nache, Ceramic Contemporaries 2, Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Crafts Council setting up grant
Selected Solo Exhibitions
From between 2006-2009 I have been developing a new body of work and have felt it important not to exhibit up to now.
July 2010 Solo exhibition at Contemporary Applied Arts London, ‘Todo Sobre Mi Padre’ Catalogued.
2004 Solo Exhibition with Helen Drutt , Philadelphia Art Alliance, Philadelphia U.S.A.
2002-03 “Throwing Lines”- A major solo touring exhibition, City Art Gallery, Leicester. Brewery Arts, Cirencester. The Pea Rooms, Lincolnshire.
Gracefields Arts, Dumfries. The Mac, Birmingham.
2002 Beaux Arts, Bath
2000 Beaux Arts, Bath
1998 “Passage of Water”, Beaux Arts, Bath
Selected Exhibitions
2010 Collect At the Saatchi Galleries London with Contemporary Applied Arts.
2009 “Hats off to Helen”, A Tribute to Helen Drutt at The Clay Studio Philadelphia.
2006 ‘Sculpted in Clay at the Sheffield Millennium Galleries’, group show.
2005 Galerie Anderwereld Katuin, Groningen, Holland. Sofa New York , Helen Drutt.
2004 ‘Making Waves ‘ Two person show at Flow Gallery, London.
2003 Two person show, Carlin Gallery, Paris
2001 Group show, Gallery Norby, Copenhagen, Denmark. “Home Sweet Home”, A British Council exhibition touring Scandinavia, Australia and New Zealand. “Poetics of Clay”, an international perspective, curated by Helen Drutt, Philadelphia.
2000 “Contours” a two person show at Flow gallery London.
1999 Hackney Contemporaries, Bluecoat display centre, Liverpool. White Gallery Brighton.
Awards and Grants
1998 Young Achievers celebration at Buckingham Palace.
1997 One of six prizes awarded at Talente, Munich.
1996 First prize, Nache, Ceramic Contemporaries 2, Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
Crafts Council setting up grant.
Public Collections
The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
Leeds City Gallery.
The national Museums and Galleries, Merseyside, Liverpool.
The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA.
The Philadelphia Museum of Art, USA.
Houston Centre for Contemporary Art.
The Mint Museum USA.