“ Between the Dog and the Wolf” a solo exhibition of new work starting 27th Jan 2023 at the Lowry Hotel in Manchester

“Between the Dog and the Wolf”

At the beginning of 2019 Sophie Nixon commenced an artist residency in the gallery of Comme Ca Art in Ancoats. Having spent many years painting the Manchester Cityscape this residency afforded an opportunity to paint the ever-changing skyline of the city.  Once in situ however, Sophie surprised herself by being drawn to sketching and painting the light changing over the remote hills rather than the vivid bustling city. With 24-hour access to the building, Sophie quickly found that the sunset over both the city and the hills to the North were the perfect atmosphere and light for her painting.

Visiting family in the Southwest and many breaks in Pembrokeshire and South Wales during the pandemic offered car journeys returning to Manchester at dusk with the sun setting to the left of the motorway. Views across towards the West Coast, pylons, windfarms, oil refineries, petrol stations and towns silhouetted and above all else huge skies providing further source material for these new paintings. In many ways these are a return to and development of her earlier paintings of sulphuric lit car journeys and petrol stations from around 2009.

A visit to see one of her favourite artists and influences, Jock McFadyen’s retrospective at the Lowry in Salford in 2021 was like a door opening for Sophie. Viewing Jock’s confident, huge landscapes with emphasis given to weighty skies above a miniscule landscape opened her eyes to a new way of seeing the landscape and our place in the world. Whilst his works are meticulously and beautifully rendered, they veer away from traditional landscape painting, allowing loose brush work and impasto layers in the paint. Seeing them juxtaposed alongside LS Lowry’s work was another eye opener.

The title for this exhibition comes from the French description for dusk “entre le chien et le loup”. “Between the Dog and the Wolf” because at that time in the day, one can’t see the difference. This title was given by a follower on Sophie’s social media account who said “you depict this light so well” and it is such a beautiful way of describing this gloaming, golden hour.

These new works by Sophie are on show at the Lowry Hotel until the end of March 2023.