Nicolas Feldmeyer | Shadows Hold Their Breath

25th January - 15th March 2025

Rua de São Bernardo 15 R/C, Lisbon

Encounter is pleased to present Shadows Hold Their Breath, a solo exhibition of new works by Nicolas Feldmeyer opening on January 25th. This focused collection of works on paper extends Feldmeyer’s sensitive exploration of the poetics of space through material and form. The artist has an ongoing preoccupation with the symbolic and pervasive properties of light, a formal concern with its mouldable character as both intangible yet essential matter. During the meditative process of making these graphite drawings, Feldmeyer felt an affinity with Emily Dickinson’s 1861 poem the ‘Slant of Light,’ in which a 'listening' and still landscape unfolds beyond itself, becoming almost a state of mind. On 'winter afternoons', 'shadows hold their breath' (as the exhibition title references), captivated by a 'certain slant of light'.

At the core of this new series is a remarkable ability to evoke atmospheres, to construct ethereal moments - landscapes to get lost in. Dappled beams carve pathways through dense groves and illuminating shards suggest spaces beyond our sight. Feldmeyer states, recollecting the scene from which his drawing ‘Morning Sun II’ was derived, ‘something about the quality of the light and the arrangement of the trees struck me - like a wordless play with few actors on an empty stage.’ As such, in these works light itself becomes choreographed. It not only articulates space and time, but also acts as a mysterious protagonist in constant interplay with objects and shadows. In both subject and form, Feldmeyer's works echo enduring art historical scenes, from the silent forests of Arnold Bocklin to Georges Seurat's hazy tonal studies. The artist builds windows into uncanny introspective places, idealised compositional sets somewhere between fact and fiction, memory and imagination.

These melancholic landscapes are devoid of people. Within their quiet compositions the gaps and blind spots become as important as what is constructed. These drawings are not defined by lines but instead built through their absence. Luminosity is mysteriously extracted from graphite's dark matter and forms are articulated by the places that light does not reach. Daylight is made into a medium, a substance with its own haptic qualities - a tangible sense of materiality, pressure and weight. Feldmeyer's tonal investigations perform an ambivalent function, they both open and close possibilities for space, leaving us unsure of where we stand and how far we can journey through these enigmatic sites. The closer we look the more we question where the light originates and what it shapes. An implied realism is fractured, evoking a certain sense of disorientation and ungrounding. Is the sun rising or falling? Are the shadows enveloping or retreating?

The exhibition will run until 15th March 2025.

Planning your Visit

Encounter, Rua de São Bernardo 15 R/C, 1200-823, Estrela, Lisboa

Wednesday - Saturday 12 - 7pm and by appointment

Nicolas Feldmeyer

Nicolas Feldmeyer (1980) was born in Switzerland and lives and works in London. After completing an MSc in Architecture in Zurich he went on to study Fine Arts at the San Francisco Art Institute on a Fulbright Grant. Feldmeyer received an MFA with distinction from the Slade in 2012. His work has been awarded the Saatchi and Channel 4’s New Sensations First Prize 2012 and the William Coldstream Prize amongst others.

Feldmeyer has regularly exhibited at important galleries and institutions internationally. Recent solo exhibitions include; ‘Terrain Vague’, Encounter, Lisbon (2023), ‘Fading Light’, Encounter, Online (2020), ‘Beacon’, Hammersmith and Fulham Townhall, London (2018), ‘Towards the Horizon’, Fano Island, Denmark (2016), ‘Lacunae’, Lacuna Project Space, London (2015), ‘Subliminal Spaces’, Maddox Arts, London (2015), ‘Nicolas Feldmeyer’, MC2 Gallery, Milan (2014), ‘Untitled (Crypt)’, Christchurch Spitalfields London (2011). Selected group exhibitions include; ‘Passages’, Encounter, Lisbon (2024), ‘Open’, Royal Watercolour Society, London (2024), ‘Highlights’, Encounter, London, 2023, ‘RSA Annual Exhibition’, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh (2022), ‘Fermata’, Encounter, London (2021), ‘What Remains’, Encounter, London (2021), ‘Drawing Postal Project, Camberwell College, London (2021), ‘Photo London’, Encounter, Online (2020), ‘Shapes in Clouds’, Encounter, London (2020), ‘Everything Must Go’, Assembly Point, London (2019), ‘Photographs’, Sotheby’s, London (2019), ‘Border Lines’, Maddox Arts, London (2019), ‘5 Trillion Times’, China Academy of Art, Hangzhou (2018), ‘Aesthetica Art Prize’, York Art Museum, York (2018), ‘Art of the Postcard’, Handel Street Projects, London (2017), ‘No Lemon, No Melon’ Flowers Gallery, New York (2017), Artist Rooms, Encounter, London (2017), ‘Right Through You’, Koppel Project, London (2017), ‘Perfectionism’, Griffin Gallery, London (2015), ‘Lumen Prize’, New York Institute of Technology, New York (2014), ‘Hacking Spaces’, Bosse and Baum, London (2014), ‘Fresh Faced and Wild Eyed’, The Photographers Gallery, London (2013), ‘Saatchi Gallery and Channel 4 New Sensations’, Victoria House, London (2012). Feldmeyer is a guest lecturer at the AA School of Architecture, The CASS, Metropolitan University, and is Associate Lecturer at Camberwell College, University of the Arts London.

His work is included in numerous public and private collections worldwide including The Victoria and Albert Museum, The British Museum, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, UCL Art Museum, Panoptes Collection, Sellar Property and British Land, MACAM Museu de Arte Contemporânea Armando Martins.