Nicholas McArthur is a visual artist based in London, and Sofia, Bulgaria. He is a graduate of Central St Martins (UAL) and at The Royal Collage of Art.
From the murky byways of downtrodden high streets to rubbish-strewn wastelands, Nicholas McArthur's work has led him to seek deliverance in seemingly adverse environments.
His practice brings together a variety of elements: atmospheric lighting and sound, costumes and homemade props, and salvaged materials. These elements combine to create performances, videos, and installations.
Disguised in drab clothing, McArthur takes to the streets to become his characters. These people are often lost or searching for something. Staggering past unsuspecting shoppers or fleeing from stray dogs the films are firmly rooted in the present moment. The character's solitary quests are accompanied by a sense of unease and uncertainty, that seems to respond directly to the urban environment they inhabit.
The films are reminiscent of the kind of oddball creations you find on YouTube. Low, amateur-like production values help to qualify the sincerity and fragility of Mcarthur’s performances. Moreover, as with Ishmael in Moby Dick or Jonathan Harker in Stoker’s Dracula, McArthur is proposing his films as real artefacts, as if they had been made by one of his characters.
Similarly, McArthur's installations are also distinctively homemade, Worn furniture threadbare rugs and reclaimed materials help bridge a connection with the films, locating these physical elements in the same quotidian world depicted on the screen.Galleries and festivals in the UK and abroad have exhibited McArthur's work.
McArthur is also a lecturer at the University of Creative Arts in Farnham, as well as on the MA architecture programme at Oxford Brooks.
McArthur has received acclaim in reviews in Art Monthly, The Guardian, Radio Cardiff, and Nottingham Visual Art, and was celebrated in an essay by Jamie Sutcliffe for Open File at the Outpost Gallery.
