Nicolas Party – Portrait of a Seahorse Necklace

Nicolas Party's Portrait of a Seahorse Necklace (2021) is a signed limited edition woodcut printed on HM-5 gampi-shi that reflects the artist's distinctive approach to portraiture and graphic reduction. The composition presents a frontal, stylized face set against a deep black ground, with finely cut lines defining the features and a small seahorse pendant introducing a subtle surreal accent. The contrast between the pale figure and the dark background gives the image a timeless, almost emblematic quality.

Published in 2021 in a limited edition of 100 prints, Portrait of a Seahorse Necklace is hand-signed and numbered on the front and accompanied by a signed artist's book. The fine art print demonstrates Party's sensitivity to traditional printmaking techniques while maintaining a contemporary visual language rooted in clarity, balance, and restraint.

Nicolas Party (born 1980, Lausanne, Switzerland) is an internationally recognized contemporary artist known for his distinctive, color-saturated paintings, murals, sculptures, and limited edition prints. Based between New York and Brussels, Party works across painting, drawing, sculpture, and installation, often reducing everyday subjects such as landscapes, still lifes, and portraits to their essential forms. His compositions are defined by flat planes of intense color, carefully modulated surfaces, and a deliberate absence of extraneous detail, creating images that feel both immediate and formally rigorous.

A central aspect of Party's practice is the dialogue between two- and three-dimensional space. His paintings frequently extend into sculptural reliefs, while his painted sculptures and installations blur the boundary between image and object. This interest in spatial ambiguity allows Party to challenge traditional hierarchies between painting and sculpture, encouraging viewers to experience color, form, and scale as physical as well as visual phenomena. His artworks draw on art historical references ranging from Renaissance frescoes to modernist abstraction, filtered through a contemporary visual language.

In addition to his studio practice, Party has produced large-scale immersive installations and murals for major institutions, integrating painting and architecture into cohesive environments. Notable projects include Speakers' Corner at the New Museum (2019), alongside solo exhibitions at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Le Consortium, M WOODS, and the Magritte Museum. His artworks are held in prominent international collections, underscoring his position as a significant figure in contemporary painting and installation art.