Sculpture & Combined Media
Finn Nichol
Based between Limerick and Offaly, my practice is a multi-disciplinary enquiry into storytelling which appraises the lived experience of the Anthropocene.
Embracing formal experimentation in my studio practice has yields an aesthetic language rooted in collage, illustration and animation- while concurrent musical explorations bear a sonic syntax of richly textured maximalism.
United, sound and visuals form technicolour visions of gothic psychedelia- cohesive worlds from which I launch investigations into isolation and helplessness in the face of anthropogenic fallout. Art becomes both a constructive artefact of this anxiety and an acclimatizing agent in engaging with such dread inducing ideas.
Titled after a haunting early Beach Boys track, The Lonely Sea is vestigial of a year defined by isolation. Conceptualized when largely immobilized by an arthritic flareup and completed while under five kilometres travel restrictions, a sense of entrapment bleeds onto the screen.
Devoid of interaction or connection, characters live out choreographed loops against an increasingly surreal world. Their fixed expressions betray only emotional catalepsy while the method of production- a mixture of hand drawn, claymation and digital animation- emphasizes repetition and labour- thus reflecting their existence.