Although artistic blood runs through his veins, Nicholas, a third-generation artist born in 1993 in St. Louis, Missouri, did not discover his love of artistic inspiration and creation until 2014.

Nicholas appreciates the characteristics of a variety of artistic mediums and, therefore, does not restrict himself to one. Typically, he expresses himself through gouache, pastels, charcoal, oils, and digital although he has also been known to work in photography and to use his own body as a canvas.

Nicholas' drive to create echoes as a visceral compulsion. Fortunately, he has orchestrated his life in a way that he surrounds himself with habits of artistic exploration, offering a multitude of subjects to satiate his creative appetite. Nicholas sees inspiration as not a dream to be waited and wished upon, but as a muse of opportunity born of the willingness to seek out and appreciate the beauty in his surroundings.

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Award winning artist, Marjorie Hicks's canvases capture the play of light and the drama of shadow and color that fall on any and all of her subjects. As much as she enjoys painting. She is also a popular teacher to artists. John Singer Sargent, Joaquin Sorolla, Henry Potthast among others continue to inspire her works. Marjorie is grateful for the talented and supportive community of artists in Nashville, where she resides. She is equally at home painting commissioned portraits in studio or outdoor scenes in a style inspired by the Impressionists.

Find more about Marjorie here

Edward Povey was born in 1951 in London, England, and grew up as an only child, painting obsessively and writing prose and music. He studied drawing at Eastbourne College of Art and Design, and then psychology and painting at The University of Wales. While in his twenties, he made his name as a mural painter, and was filmed by the BBC while he created 25 massive murals. He later came to regard this period as his apprenticeship.

In 1982 he moved his studio to the Caribbean Island of Grenada for seven years. This adventurous decision was taken to allow him to concentrate on painting on canvas and to give himself a fresh vision away from the fame and distractions derived from his murals. During this time his work began to be acquired by collectors in the United States. He studied color and composition with established artists such as the Danish architectural abstractionist Paul Klose, the American colorist Malcolm T. Liepke, and the Belgian art dealer Jan de Maere. By 1991, he was showing in John Whitney Payson’s New York gallery beside 20th Century American masters, and over the next three decades his work was on exhibition in galleries spanning seven countries.

In 1991 The University of Wales commissioned Povey to create a major painting for a chamber concert hall in Wales, measuring 20 x 40 feet, for which he designed a work with intensely direct narrative, comprising seven panels framed by trompe-l’oeil stonework. The mural is called the Hall of Illusion, and is considered one of the ten most important university owned artworks, as stated by the London Times.

By the year 2000, Povey’s work was acquired by prominent institutions including The National Museum of Wales; MOMA Wales; the National Library of Wales; the Glynn Vivien Art Museum; the Anglesey Museum Art Collection and numerous corporate art collections, and in 2018 The British Library documented his career for the British nation.

Povey is preoccupied with the human experience in general, and his own personal experiences steeped in adventure. As a child he was unusually sensitive and empathic, prone to fainting. He has had three marriages through two wars, in Israel and in the Caribbean. There is a clear development in his art, from observations on society in his 1970s’ murals, through family psychology and symbolism in his works of the 1990s, and culminating with insights into individual human vulnerability and mortality in his current paintings.

His paintings were most recently exhibited in 2023 at the European Museum of Modern Art, Barcelona, described by the museum as a curated selection of the most outstanding artists in contemporary representational art. He lives and works in Devon, England, and still devotes up to a hundred hours a week to his work.

This week’s episode is with David Shevlino.

David Shevlino was born in Jersey City, NJ in 1962. A graduate of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the University of Pennsylvania, he also studied at the Art Students' League in New York. Growing up near NYC, Shevlino was exposed to art as a teenager. He began making trips to art museums at age 15 and developed a love of traditional figurative painting. His early work was very traditional and classically inspired. However, after many years of experimenting, Shevlino began exploring a looser paint application which stradles the line between representational painting and abstraction. This "in between" area is where the painter feels most comfortable and best able to express his artistic voice. His paintings are characterized by broad brushstrokes, a sensuous application of paint and an obvious feel for tonal harmonies. At the same time, the artist demonstrates a firm sense of control, tightening up the composition through his deft modeling of the human form. Shevlino has exhibited work nationally in both solo and group exhibits over the past two decades and currently lives in NC.

We have come to the end of season II. Thank you to all our viewers, listeners and supporters. In this episode Simon and Richard catch up and share some news and look back on season II.

We look forward to seeing you all soon

This week we are joined by the wonderful Heather Jeanne Chontos. Heather’s dynamic and idiosyncratic style is immediately recognisable. She joins us to discuss her work and share insights from her creative journey.

“As a painter, I work impulsively, harnessing the power of gestures to create instinctive compositions that combine bold colours, dynamic marks and organic forms. Rather than using brushes or other traditional tools, I apply paint with scraps of plastic, such as hotel-room key cards, or draw and scratch at the surface using the paint tube itself. The fine edges of my chosen instruments allow me to draw long, penetrating lines and create large, highly saturated fields of colour.”

Heather Jeanne Chontos

This week we are joined by Pete Monaghan. Living and working in North Wales, Pete’s idiosyncratic approach to mark making and composition result in fascinating paintings that are concerned with both landscape and architecture. Pete says of his work “Most of my work is concerned with vernacular architecture, especially of the “celtic fringes” of Wales, Ireland and Scotland but also the higher slopes of the Alps”.

Learn more about Pete here

This week we are joined by Zoey Frank, a representational oil painter whose work includes perceptual painting, narrative, and formal investigations. Zoey shares insights from her creative journey along with thoughts on painting, passion for representing the figure and working on a large scale.

Find out more about Zoey Frank here