Nick Claiden: Looking good

May...Maybe - inspired by the ruins of Fountains Abbey

They are two contrasting places - Leeds and Fountains Abbey - but a local artist has used both as inspiration for his latest exhibition.

Look Up, Look At is Nick Claiden's reactions to the two contrasting locales.

The exhibition explores Nick's ongoing involvement with these two different environments and the way we interact with them and each other.

Nick's art uses watercolours and mixed media on paper and leaded glass.

Nick describes how the contrasting places fired her imagination: "My work focuses on the built environment, exploring the very different constraints of a city, Leeds, and the ruins of Fountains Abbey, and how they affect the people who move through them."

"I'm interested both in the way figures interact with their environment and with each other and how that changes when in different locations."

"The scale of the work is important here to emphasise the tension between the figures and the buildings that surround them."

"I also take parts of the building and isolate them so that they become an object in their own right. I like to give them a monumental feel, making the viewer look at the built environment in a different way."

"My aim is to confront and confound the audience and make them question what they are seeing."

One Is One... clearly inspired by Leeds city centre

"In my preparation I use photos and digital imaging to alter scale, colour, remove some of the elements and focus on aspects that are important to me. I work in mixed media using watercolours applied thickly, with resist and washing out, combined with oil crayon, pencil, gouache and collage."

"I have recently begun working in leaded and fused glass and I am exploring the same subjects (as well as aspects of the natural world), using the stronger design elements necessitated by glass."

"This work has developed naturally from my experience in print making. Working in glass gives me the opportunity to look at the interaction of light with the artwork and its immediate surroundings in a much more dynamic way."

Nick has been exhibiting her art for 30 years, in both solo and group exhibitions, both in galleries and social spaces such as cafes and restaurants.

Look Up, Look At: Reactions to our surroundings - Leeds vs Fountains Abbey is at the Design Innovation Centre, 46 The Calls from Tuesday 3 November until Thursday 26 November 2009 - Monday to Friday only, 9am - 5pm.