Nicolas Party
Copper & Dust
12 May—31 August 2025
Holburne Museum, Bath, England, UK
The Holburne Museum is delighted to present Copper & Dust, a new exhibition by Nicolas Party (b. 1980, Lausanne, Switzerland). The presentation brings together oil paintings on copper, works on linen and a new large-scale, site-specific mural, executed in soft pastels in our Picture Gallery.
Party’s paintings are stylistically cohesive, graceful and idiosyncratic. While more recent works have incorporated intricate oil paintings on copper, Party is well-known for his soft pastel works on paper and linen, along with site-specific public murals and immersive installations. The latter are influenced by his early work as a graffiti artist, his training in graphic design and 3D animation, and his love of 18th century pastels, examples of which feature in our collection.
Alongside the mural, Party’s intimate oil on copper works, comprising landscapes, still-lifes and portraits, will be shown in two intimate cabinet galleries. Many of Party’s oil on copper paintings are copies of his older pastels so that the exhibition might be seen as a mini-retrospective.
Party’s new mural responds specifically to one of our 17th century works, A Brawl between Peasants by Benjamin Gerritsz. Cuyp (1612–1652), a Dutch painter famed for his allegorical oil panels and landscapes, influenced by his contemporary Rembrandt’s use of dramatic light and shade. Party became interested in the work following extensive research into the Holburne’s collection after visiting in 2023.