Nick Gordon - ARTIst
Nick Gordon is an artist who works across painting, sculpture and photography. His work focuses on finding harmonies among the disparate elements of urbanism, from the microchip to music, traffic and the various techniques used to map urban spaces past and present.
Nick’s art initially developed from his research - he holds a University Medal and PhD in history - into how cities and urban structures have been understood in literature, art and Western philosophy. Urbanism is the fundamental mode of modern societies, from the dominance of territorial states over hinterlands, through to colonialism and contemporary economic imperialism. It has a tendency to fragment, multiply, create hybrids, hijack symbolic forms and diversify lived experience.
Among this profusion there are repetitions of structures, convergences and counterpoints. Some formal similarities, such as between television circuit boards and industrial plants seen from the air, are linked by the efficient use of materials within spatial limitations. Others structures are transitory - the movement of people and objects through space, for example - or apparently coincidental - such as Nick’s use of geometric structures based on the golden ratio and the form of a classical fugue.
Nick Gordon plays with these structures synaesthetically - as translations of sounds and ideas into colour and line - to create an art of rhythms and variations.
“Observation, awareness, research - these are just the beginning points of a creative process, never the ends in themselves.” - Nick Gordon
Nick Gordon - Lecturer and critic
Nick holds a PhD and University Medal in history from The University of Sydney, where he studied history and ancient history, specialising in medieval and early modern Europe. He has 10 years’ experience as a university lecturer, on topics ranging from classical political thought, to the history and culture of Renaissance Italy, architectural history and the history of philosophy.
Nick has taught numerous, popular adult education courses, at institutions including the Centre for Continuing Education and the WEA in Sydney. He is a regular lecturer in general audience lecture programs, including at the Nicholson Museum, Sydney and Hazelhurst Regional Art Gallery. Nick also has more than 10 years’ experience leading small group cultural tours in Europe and Australia for Academy Travel, during which he teaches the art, history and cultures of the region to the people visiting them.
In addition, Nick is an artist. His artist’s eye and detailed knowledge of art and its conservation complement his academic expertise.
Nick’s interests and fields of research are wide-ranging - from the classical world to the art and culture of Renaissance Italy, Netherlandish and Dutch Golden Age painting, and modern and contemporary art. He has an excellent reputation as a professional communicator on these subjects.
Curriculum Vitae
Art
2021 - Duo Show - Gaffa Gallery, Sydney (1 - 12 April)
2019 – Fleming and Gordon (illustrator), Abdul and the Cauliflower, Best Independent
2017 – In House, Group show - Scratch Artspace, Marrickville
2016 – Cassis Belli Duo show - Scratch Artspace, Marrickville
Lecturing and criticism
2020: “A Single Voice” (interview with Susan Philipsz), Limelight Magazine.
2020: Visual art reviews for Limelight Magazine supported by the Judith Neilson Institute for Ideas in Journalism
2020: National Lecturer for the Australian Decorative and Fine Arts Association
2020-present: Art and history lectures for The Short Course
2017- present: art history lectures at Hazelhurst Regional Gallery
2016-present: art history lectures at the WEA, Sydney
2014 – present: art history lectures at The Nicholson Museum, University of Sydney
2012-2016: art and history lectures at the Centre for Continuing Education, Sydney
2009-2014: Lecturer in history, University of Western Sydney
2004-2009: Associate lecturer in history, University of Sydney
Education
2004-2009: Doctor of Philosophy, Department of History, University of Sydney
2000-2003: Bachelor of Arts (Hons I and the University Medal), Department of History, University of Sydney