Nick Dridan is an artist living in rural central Victoria, Australia. Having grown up in this area, both memory and direct observation have a role to play in his working method. He works with both oil paint and watercolor.
His paintings have been described as somewhat detached, revealing an insular and strange beauty that can seem slightly otherworldly. In recent works, he has gone back to exploring more universal themes, symbols, and ideas, which are showing up in different ways. @nick_dridan
How has your background in Australia contributed to your artistic identity? I was born not far from where I currently reside in a rural area of Central Western Victoria, Australia. I grew up on a farm here and know this small area very well.
The landscape around here has had a huge impact on my painting; it's old gold mining country that is now farmland and pockets of bush (forest) reserves. There are small hills and mountain ranges surrounding the area, which I often explore for inspiration. Certain trees, hills, structures, and objects.
When did you first fall in love with art and realize you wanted to be an artist? For you, what is the importance of the arts? I discovered oil painting at school when I was around 17 years old, which led me to want to pursue painting seriously. I remember being fascinated by the transparent effects I could get by spreading it thinly in successive coats, and the excitement of trying to get an idea in my head into a painting.
The thing that makes art important, as I see it, is that it allows people to express ideas and feelings in a way that usually involves creative thinking and often play. Maybe play gets overlooked a bit; there is at least some part of even the most serious piece of art that has a playful element in its creation.
What does your typical day in the studio look like? Walk us through your studio and your most used materials and tools. It depends on where I'm at with a painting. Typically, I go out for a short walk in nature in the morning, then I hop straight into the painting and go until lunch, have a short lunch break, and get back into it. Doesn't sound overly exciting, but you have to treat studio time like a job if you're working to deadlines and things. In the early stages of a painting, when I'm planning it out, it's a bit different. In this stage, which can go on for a few days sometimes, I jump around a lot between research, looking through books, online, sketching, and going out into the landscape.
My studio is just a small bedroom in the house, but it serves its purpose. I use the same old stuff most painters probably use- an easel, a large glass palette, paint, brushes. I usually have either an oil painting or a watercolor area setup at any given time, as I can't quite fit the materials and equipment for both in the space.
What projects are you at work on at the moment? And what themes or ideas are currently driving your work? Currently, I am creating a couple of new works to go with others I've made this year for a small display at my Melbourne gallery in October. This won't be an exhibition as such, just a display of recent works, some of which have already been exhibited elsewhere. I've found this good for the moment, as it hasn't had the pressure of a large exhibition. I will likely be working towards a larger exhibition of work next year.
At the moment I'm very interested in lots of things, maybe too many....such as symbolism, transience, dualities like dark and light, playfulness, love, mystery, various religious and philosophical thoughts. But always beauty, beauty is the most important thing in my work.
What do you hope people feel when they experience your art? What are you trying to express? I hope people feel something, anything really, just not boredom, haha. And hey, some people will be bored by it, but you can't please everyone.
Every work is different to me, each trying to express its own thing. Half the time, I'm not sure what that is myself. I'd like to think there is at least a sense of beauty expressed in all my paintings, maybe timelessness.
Which artists, past or present, would you like to meet? And why? There are so many. I think any of the early Netherlandish painters would be interesting to drop in on while they were at work. Their paintings are so otherworldly in appearance, I sometimes find it hard to imagine them sitting there painting those works in real life, but I guess it happened, so it would be interesting to watch them and find out what they were thinking.
Do you draw inspiration from music, art, or other disciplines? I draw inspiration from lots of places. Books (fiction), poetry, music, other paintings, movies, etc. Sometimes a line in a song can start me thinking about a painting idea, or a paragraph in a book, or the background scene in a movie. Other times, I'm thinking much more about some unusual or interesting thing I saw out in the landscape.
A great thing about living in Victoria is… I live in a rural area, nearest neighbor is some 500 meters away. So that is probably the best thing about living where I do, haha.... It's peaceful.
Can you describe a project that challenged you creatively or emotionally—and how you worked through it? I can't think of any particular "project", but certainly there have been many paintings that have challenged me both creatively and emotionally. Especially when you're working toward an exhibition, and you get stuck on a work while you have that deadline approaching. It can be very stressful, and in the end, you have to give in sometimes and leave it unresolved. I've scrapped many watercolor paintings because they were beyond repair. Maybe failure is the norm with artists, and I guess you just get used to it.
Tell us about important teachers/mentors/collaborators in your life. I'm largely self-taught and haven't had many mentors or teachers. I had a couple of good lecturers at university who pushed me in the right direction, could see what I was up to, and appreciated it. But I guess largely my mentors have been my friends who are also serious painters, people I've known for a long time and will, for instance, send photos of my work in progress to for their honest criticism. We learn from each other, it's good.
Sustainability in the art world is an important issue. Can you share a memory or reflection about the beauty and wonder of the natural world? Does being in nature inspire your art or your process? I can find many things to be wondrous and mysterious, but yes, particularly the natural world. I've been wandering in the same areas since I was a kid, but I can still find something interesting every time I go looking. A tree, for instance, that maybe I hadn't noticed previously, with an unusual bark pattern or trunk form. Anything seen on these walks could spark an idea for a painting, and often does.
AI is changing everything - the way we see the world, creativity, art, our ideas of beauty and the way we communicate with each other and our imaginations. What are your reflections about AI and technology? What is the importance of human art and handmade creative works over industrialized creative practices? I tend to lean towards the view that these things will get very good at creative things. I'm not that worried about it; everything changes. They're making music that's indistinguishable from human-made music. I don't see why they won't get good at painting, once there is manipulation of the physical world involved (like a painting robot/3D printer). I guess the value of art making for humans will become more for the artist’s own enjoyment, and less for external validation/sales. There might be a niche market for "human-made art" that people seek out in rebellion to the amazing stuff AI will be capable of making. Who knows, it might be good for art to become solely a little retreat from all the noise out there, for someone to escape to and enjoy the process of creating without worrying about if it will be valued by others.
Exploring ideas, art and the creative process connects me to… myself, others, and the world.
