Nicolas Feldmeyer
Terrain Vague
10th February 2023 - 18th March 2023
Encounter is pleased to present Nicolas Feldmeyer Terrain Vague, the artist’s first solo exhibition in Portugal. The show brings together a significant new body of work, created between 2021- 2023. Concerned with states of mind and ‘the experience of places and spaces in dreams,’ Feldmeyer painstakingly creates evocative imagined landscapes and atmospheric environments that do not exist in reality. The exhibition combines new watercolours and printed three dimensional renderings. Both series move seamlessly between minimal abstraction and romantic landscape, speaking to the artist’s ongoing preoccupation with the poetics of space, materiality and illusion.
The title itself Terrain Vague, points to Feldmeyer’s core subject, alluding to unstable and ambiguous locations situated in between the remembered and the forgotten, the familiar and the fictitious. The artist employs architectural digital rendering techniques in order to construct three dimensional landscapes, which once printed, take on an elusive identity. As such, Feldmeyer claims a unique creative medium that operates on an unstable edge between drawing, painting and photography. Feldmeyer’s works act as windows onto the imagination. Through his exploration of both the miniature and the monumental, the artist constructs immersive worlds to get lost in. In his minute Estate series, he often constructs every blade of grass or leaves on a tree, producing microcosmic scenes which encourage the viewer to become absorbed in the works intricate layers. His Terrain Vague series, in contrast, becomes immersive through the expansiveness of the images, unfathomable landscapes which extend towards unbounded horizons. In these works, the images are expanded to the brink of collapse, leaving us with only an evocative suggestion of space and atmosphere. The Terrain Vague series demonstrates a striking economy of line and form. Echoing the artist’s watercolours, the minimal residues of ink on paper blur boundaries between sky, sea, land and clouds.
Drawing on a technical skillset and affinity for reconstructing space developed during his training as an architect, Feldmeyer utilizes the engineered and constructed in order to create suggestive and lyrical compositions. Acting as a kind of stage set designer he precisely manipulates his images, strategizing every moment and detail. For instance, he selects the exact orientation and time of day in each image, carefully choreographing the angle at which light comes over the crest of the hill or casts a dappled shadow on a pool of water.
Whilst initially these images seem to speak to scenes we’ve seen before, in fact, on closer observation it becomes apparent that these are invented places, somewhat otherworldly. Through close looking, their constructed artifice is revealed and their implied realism fractured, evoking an uncanny disorientation and uncertainty in the viewer. Through employing techniques often used by designers and architects to propose futuristic visions and idealised environments, Feldmeyer calls into question the validity of these manufactured scenes and the way we interact with them.
Inevitably, the creation of alternative visions of reality, forces us to interrogate our own position within the world, particularly at a time of environmental change and disturbance. In this sense, the possibility of the continued existence of these suggested landscapes begins to waver, imbuing the images with a melancholic sense of longing.
Terrain Vague runs until 18th March 2023.
Planning your Visit
Encounter, Rua de Sao Bernardo 15, RC, 1200 823, Estrela, Lisboa
Wednesday - Saturday 2-7pm 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; ‘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 British Museum, UCL Art Museum, Panoptes Collection, Sellar Property and British Land and MACAM Museu de Arte Contemporânea Armando Martins.