Turbulent Terrain: Manifestations of the Sublime in Contemporary Art
Nicholas Folland

Nicholas Folland is an installation artist who currently lives and works in Adelaide. In 2005, he completed an MA of Visual Arts at the University of Sydney, following a Bachelor of Visual Arts from the University of South Australia, completed in 1999. In 1999 he was awarded a Samstag International Visual Art Scholarship.

Nicholas Folland’s haunting frozen chandelier piece, A job for tomorrow… 2009, taps into our apocalyptic anxieties through the presentation of an apparent paradox which destabilises our sense of the truth. Eerily suggestive of an abandoned maintenance operation, the glowing chandelier, potent cultural symbol of excessive wealth, success and colonial imperialism, is slowly enveloped by encrustations of ice. Unpredictable and unstable, the work alludes to the potential for climatic disaster, for human civilization to be wiped out by a sudden catastrophe such as the onset of a nuclear winter. A job for tomorrow… provides an experience of the sublime which reminds us of our mortality and vulnerability in the face of the Earth’s power.

Nicholas Folland is represented by Greenaway Art Gallery, Adelaide

Image: Nicholas Folland, A job for tomorrow...2009, metal, glass, light globes, electrical freezer element, ice