Nicolas Moreton – Visual Artist

Nicolas Moreton – Visual Artist

Nicolas Moreton has been a sculptor for over 35 years.

In the time I have known him we have worked together on The RHS Chelsea Flower Show for the last four years. He has built gardens to showcase his extraordinary skills and to set his exhibits within a wildflower meadow.

To his peers Nicolas Moreton occupies a place of profound reverence and fascination. His artistry transcends mere representation, delving deep into the realms of emotion, memory, and the very essence of human experience.

Nicolas Moreton – History

Nicolas Moreton was born in the picturesque English town of Stratford-upon-Avon.  From an early age, he displayed a talent for drawing and painting, captivating the interplay of light and shadow, form and texture. Nicolas began carving during the last year of his Fine Art degree in 1985. Nicolas’ material of choice is the dark blue and grey Northampton limestone discovered on the farm where his studio is located.  Alongside this local stone Nicolas also uses Ancaster Weatherbed, Derbyshire Fossil and Purbeck marble.

His work was recognised with a double success in 1994. He won two competitions for sculptures to be placed in City Square, Milton Keynes. He has works on display at Burghley House, Longleat House and The University of Northampton. Perhaps his most ambitious work to date dates from 2004 – Stone Circle at Cefn Hellen, Monmouthshire.  2004 was also the start of Nicolas’ experimentation with light and power producing “Rock Energy” in 2007, “Eye of the Needle” from 2010 and “Door of Hope” from 2012.

What sets Nicolas apart from his peers is his uncanny ability to imbue his sculptures with a sense of raw emotion and human experience. Each piece tells a story, capturing fleeting moments of joy, sorrow, longing, and resilience. Whether depicting a tender embrace between lovers or the anguish of loss, his sculptures resonate with universal truths and shared human experiences, transcending language and culture.

 

“For a full decade I have taken an interest in Nicolas Moreton, one of the very few young British sculptors who understands and exploits the nature and character of stone in which he works. Not for him the welded detritus of the steel-yard or the ready-made object cast in bronze by other hands – he needs the stone, its colour and texture, rough-hewn and polished smooth, for it is not only his material but his inspiration too.

He sees within the quarried block the imaginings of his mind’s eye when to the rest of us the inert stone might as well be a mere doorstep. Then from its rock-hard fastness he retrieves the soft and swelling forms that are the sensual expressions of his fantasy. In another man’s hands these might seem deliberately erotic, but in Moreton’s they have an ancient innocence that reaches far back to European civilisation’s first fumbling attempts to embody symbols of human fecundity – he has, as it were, polished the Paleolithic Venus of Willendorf.

I know no artist more honestly instinctive nor less self-conscious in his imagery, yet the instinct, the aesthetic force that drives him, is disciplined by his uncompromising respect for the material qualities of stone and the expert and refined techniques with which he works it. Some years ago I commissioned a piece from him; it sits in my study and the daily pleasure I derive from it is, I am certain, inexhaustible.”

Brian Sewell Art Critic. 2004

RHS Chelsea 2024: