NICK HERD

b. New Zealand, 1989
Lives and works in Sydney, Australia.

EXHIBITION:
THE STORY OF THE WIND
APRIL 9 - 26 2026

CATALOGUE OF WORKS

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Nick Herd concentrates on his personal relationships and experiences to create his richly-coloured, textured paintings. With drawing at the foundation, Herd is a natural draftsman, his understanding of line allows movement of unwavering fluidity. In a departure from traditional still life and portraiture, his energetic strokes boldly push forward the character and form of his subject to be experienced in the flesh. Painting from life, Herd captures the sensitive nature and complexity of his subjects; each work gritty and saturated with information. Herd’s work is overwhelmingly gestural yet intriguingly descriptive. He maintains the gestural nature of his paintings by consciously breaking routine any time he observes it entering his practice. Of this, he states, “It needs to be raw, it needs to be honest”. Herd’s use of colour is kept loose and is in constant evolution. Excited by how different colours interact, he is continually seeking new relationships. Herd’s work is characterised by expressionistic mark making and unrefined, sometimes grotesque, figurative depiction. Nick Herd was born in Tāmaki Makaurau, New Zealand, and grew up on a lifestyle block on the city’s outskirts. With interests in the human body, he studied a Bachelor of Sports Science Nick Herd majoring in Human Anatomy. He went on to study a Bachelor in Art and Design at AUT. His love for the physicality, the substance of paint and mark making marry together to form a visual and emotive field of colour. With references to modernism’s Neo-Expressionism and contemporary faux naïf Herd is interested in painting as a physical discharge of energy and anxiety. The model or still life become vessels for thoughtful meditation in his attempts to communicate a human experience to the viewer.