Nick Holdsworth

Biggie Smalls

2024

Nick's artistic process is a captivating blend of modern techniques and nostalgic inspiration. He combines digital manipulation, creative graphics, and hand-painting to craft powerful images. Each piece is centred around a specific graphic, often a famous brand logo associated with the subject, resulting in a unique fusion of past and future influences. This blend adds depth, wit, and a timeless quality to his contemporary pieces, reflecting Nick's journey through iconic experiences and creative innovation. Nick begins by selecting online images to retouch, enhancing them by removing imperfections and adjusting details through Photoshop's layered approach. He isolates various elements into separate layers, allowing focused refinement. Nick sometimes incorporates additional details from other images, integrating them seamlessly through masking. Subsequently, he pixelates the image and overlays it with his chosen repeated icon, often a recognisable brand logo associated with the subject. He carefully refines each layer, ensuring the graphics remain visible and harmonious. Nick then adds colour to each layer, meticulously hand-painting with a tablet, matching the colours he'll use for the final airbrushed painting. The final piece is printed monochrome in mosaic form and is then perfected by many hours of hand painting, utilising airbrushing, inks, stencils, pens, and brushes to achieve the desired tone and detail. This thoroughly modern, cutting edge process contrasts with the nostalgic nature of the images, inspired by the musical and on-screen legends of Nick’s youth and hours spent flicking through fashion and lifestyle magazines. This unexpected combination imbues the pieces with emotional depth, occasional wit, and a surprisingly vintage style for something so contemporary. Freddie Mercury’s sister and Brian May both hold Nick’s portraits of Freddie in their private collections.