NICOLAS PARTY X HAUSER & WIRTH, LONDON

Swiss artist Nicolas Party presents his first solo exhibition at Hauser & Wirth London starting on October 14. Dedicated to new pastel works, including portraits and treescapes that reinvent the conventions of figurative painting, the artist invites viewers to immerse themselves in his distinctive universe, where the gallery’s architectural elements become an integral part of the visual installation.

The art of Impermanence according to Party

The portraits featured in this exhibition draw inspiration from two iconic sculptures: Clotho (1893) by Camille Claudel and The Helmet Maker’s Once-Beautiful Wife (1885–1887) by Auguste Rodin. These references serve as a starting point for a reflection on time, aging, and  eventually mortality—recurring themes in the Swiss artist’s work. The painted faces, frozen in an idealized and unreal youth, contrast with the time-worn forms of the original sculptures.

A series of treescapes extends this meditation on natural cycles—growth, decay, and renewal. Each pastel captures a distinct moment, from lush summer greenery to the bare silhouettes of winter, forming a powerful visual metaphor for life’s fragility and perpetual renewal. In one work, a waterfall appears, symbolizing the ceaseless flow of time and the vital movement at the heart of stillness. Breaking from the still, luminous landscapes that surround it, this unstoppable force reminds us that change and rebirth are the only constants of the human condition.

Bathed in electric blue and punctuated by architectural arches, the exhibition immerses the viewer in a dialogue between painting, space, and light, inviting contemplation on temporality and transformation.

The artist

Born in Lausanne in 1980, Nicolas Party is a figurative painter whose landscapes, portraits, and still lifes combine familiarity with strangeness. Through his work, he both celebrates and challenges the traditional conventions of representational painting. Working primarily in soft pastel—a relatively uncommon medium today—he exploits its chromatic richness and fluidity to create images of striking intensity, hovering between the natural and the artificial. His distinctive visual language forms a dreamlike universe populated by fantastical figures and motifs, where deliberately distorted perspectives evoke an atmosphere that is both poetic and unsettling.

On view from October 14 to December 20, Hauser & Wirth, London.

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