Nicolas Party is a Swiss-born, New York-based artist whose vividly coloured paintings, sculptures, and installations reimagine the traditions of portraiture and still life through a distinctly surreal, dreamlike lens.
His works are instantly recognisable for their jewel-toned palettes, velvety pastel surfaces, and simplified geometric forms that transform familiar subjects into something at once strange and serene.
Party’s compositions are grounded in the observation of nature, trees, heads, vases, landscapes, yet he distils them into pure form and colour. Organic curves become spheres, cones, and cylinders; faces dissolve into luminous gradients; and still lifes hover between figuration and abstraction. His world is carefully constructed but otherworldly, inviting viewers into a realm of balance, humour, and quiet intensity.
A graduate of the Lausanne School of Art and The Glasgow School of Art, Party first came to prominence in the early 2010s with installations such as Elephants at the Woodmill (2011), a pivotal exhibition in which painted sculptural plinths blurred the line between object and support. His practice has since evolved into immersive environments where wall murals, painted sculpture, and framed works coexist in chromatic harmony.
Party’s work is represented in major public collections including the Tate, London, the Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau, the Kunsthaus Zürich, and the Long Museum, Shanghai. Today, he is recognised as one of the leading voices of contemporary painting.
