RICHARD NIE
(1954 | ENGLAND)
Richard Nie was born in England in 1954. After leaving secondary school he worked in an office and he embarked on a series of part-time jobs. As a young adult he began to suffer from serious depression and rarely left the family home, spending his nights drawing and playing the guitar, and his days sleeping.
Low in self-esteem he destroyed much of his artwork.
In a letter of 1998 he referred to drawing having been a “private language between myself and the pictures’; despite his misgivings about other people eavesdropping on this, he has accepted showing his more “finished” work, while keeping many smaller drawings “in a much more ragged; RAW; unfinished state” as a way of “compensating for all the drawings I have let go of”. The subjects are heads, figures or faces emerging from some kind of automatic-calligraphy.
He was included in the 2001 exhibition Obsessive Visions: Art Outside the Mainstream at England & Co, and in 2008, he was one of the artists chosen for the major exhibition of British Outsider Art at Musée La Halle Saint Pierre in Paris. His work is represented in private and public collections including the Musgrave Kinley Outsider Art Collection at the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester.
RICHARD NIE
(1954 | INGHILTERRA)
Richard Nie è nato in Inghilterra nel 1954. Lasciò la scuola per trovare lavoro in un ufficio e intraprendere piccole mansioni part-time. Crescendo ha iniziato a soffrire di una forte depressione e raramente ha lasciato la famiglia, trascorrendo molto tempo a casa dove, di notte, disegnava e suonava la chitarra.
La sua bassa autostima gli ha fatto distruggere molte opere.
In una lettera del 1998 ha spiegato come il disegno sia stato un “linguaggio privato tra me e le immagini”; nonostante la perplessità delle altre persone, ha accettato di mostrare i suoi lavori “finiti” , pur inserendo anche disegni molto più piccoli e incompiuti, come per “compensare tutti i disegni che ha lasciato e gettato”. I soggetti sono teste, figure e volti che emergono da una sorta di calligrafia automatica.
Ha partecipato alla mostra Obsessive Visions: Art Outside the Mainstream all’England & Co nel 2001 e nel 2008 ha esposto le sue opere al British Outsider Art al Musée La Halle Saint Pierre di Parigi. I suoi lavori sono inseriti in collezioni pubbliche e private, tra le quali la Musgrave Kinley Outsider Art Collection alla Whitworth Art Gallery di Manchester.


