Pool Paintings

 “During my childhood in Barcelona, the water exerted a great fascination on me. With our boat we often sailed along the Costa Brava during the summer holidays. I would observe the water, it´s reflections and it´s movement and wished I could somehow capture this play of colours and light. But by then photography was still expensive, even more for a child. There were no mobile phones back then. 😉

The memory of those days on the water certainly led to the fact that I later also ventured into this subject as an artist.

This particular closeness to this medium has always been animated by requests of commissioned works in which I would make portraits of families or individual persons under water. In contrast to traditional portraits, I am fascinated by the way the light reflects on the water. Through water, those portraits attain a very interesting artistic level of abstraction that takes visual to the next level.”

Nina Nolte

 

 

 

 

 

 

“My first under the water’s painting was “Cherubini I”, painted in 2006 and created with photos of friend´s kids in our pool. It was followed by many other ones, part of them have been first exhibited in Marbella where I used to live from 1997 to 2010. In 2007 during a summer show at Sara Nightingale Gallery in Watermill/ Long Island, the successful show has been fully sold. The catalogue was sponsored by Lufthansa and at that time I was – as far as I know – the first painter with under water theme.

I have been commissioned and travelled twice to the USA for under water works. The last one was a triptych that illustrated eight grandchildren on a total painted surface of 330 x 150 cm (59 x 130“). This piece now hangs in a beautiful house based in California.”

Nina Nolte