John Nicholson’s practice converges around a distinctive and somewhat unlikely fusion of influences. Constructed exclusively from plastic, his sculptures are defined in one regard by their almost paradoxical positioning in relation to the legacies of Abstraction and Minimalism.   Stridently hard-edge forms emphasise the interplay between bands of pure colour and compositional relations of shape, calling to mind the formal rigour of Neo-Plastic and Colour Field painting of the early- and mid-20th century. In conversation with these attributes, Nicholson deploys Minimalist effects such as reductive three-dimensional structures, the use of pre-fabricated industrial materials, and modular organising principles. 

These polarised formal influences are played off against one another in his works, though the sculptures refuse to be wholly subsumed by either. While there is a total disappearance of the figurative and pictorial, Nicholson’s sculptures do not assert autonomy from the world (as with Abstraction) or undermine referential possibilities by way of their materiality (in the spirit of Minimalism). Instead they propose a series of connections based on an associative reading of their raw materials and layering.  Beneath all of Nicholson’s works lies an inherent interest in processes of transformation and the creative interpretation of scientific phenomena.   

Plastic might seem an unlikely material with which to evoke such natural phenomenon, but this disjuncture is deliberate. Conventionally plastic is identified as highly artificial, yet its foundation can be traced to organic matter, and it is this irony that underscores Nicholson’s preoccupation with the medium. At its core, his work proposes continuities between paradigms that are perceived as irreconcilable: abstraction and minimalism; the natural and artificial; creative and scientific enquiry. Like the shifts and slippages that the sculptures in Tectonic allude to, Nicholson’s ideas might be understood to occupy sites of indeterminacy – interstices between oppositional extremes.

Extract from Essay by Anneke Jaspers