Nick Sweetman is a painter comfortable with a wide variety of media, but focuses on acrylic, oil, latex and aerosol paint. He is fascinated by the spontaneous and the often playful role it has in art-making. Currently he attends Ontario College of Art & Design in the Interdisciplinary Masters of Art, Media & Design program where he has explored ways of pushing his painting practice into new areas such as video, installation, and urban intervention. Now in his final year, he is focused on his MFA thesis, which will question the mimetic tradition in art through painting, photography, found objects and other hybrid media. His paintings and videos have been exhibited throughout Toronto, most recently as part of the Elaine Fleck Gallery’s catalogue show Presents, and as part of the group show Lucky 13 at the Gladstone Hotel. He has completed a diverse body of work independently and on commission for various private and corporate clients, ranging from small scale design projects for clothing, posters, tattoos, and even hockey equipment, to large scale murals. His work is inspired by the visual language in which he is immersed living and making art in downtown Toronto.

Gladstone Grow Op: Exploring landscape and place, is a four-day event that celebrates innovative ideas and conceptual responses to landscape and place across a broad range of creative practices. Grow Op will explore new territories and uncover new ways of expression and meaning through projects that represent a wide range of approaches from the prosaic to the poetic, the elemental to the ephemeral.

April 25 – 28, 2013

Images:

Run-off 3, Latex paint on canvas, 18″ x 24″
Lake and Mountain, Latex paint on canvas, 30″ x 40″
Relief Release 2, Latex paint on canvas, 30″ x 42″
Relief Release 1, Latex paint on canvas, 18″ x 26″