The Frame, the Off-Frame and the Image
Pictures, images of the world, by their existence exclude whatever is outside the frame: what is not ‘in’ the picture can be summarised in relation to what is not present due to being outside: outside the frame in terms of space; in terms of time; or present within the frame but outside its frame of representation. Not everything that stands outside the frame has a bearing on what is inside the frame, however: in my research I am interested in what specific part of this outside can be used ‘structurally’ in the production of an artwork, activating this ‘off-frame’ in a meaningful way.
The frame is a given across a multiplicity of different forms of visual art, with its origin ultimately in architecture, derived through wall and easel painting, a legacy of representation systems present in lens based media. How the appearance of different forms of representation is shaped through their technological means is important, as a historical factor, and, as a result, how the technology of the production and dissemination of images determines the forms they take. At a historical point in the short history of photographic images where the fixed borders of the frame are becoming supplemented and supplanted by virtual and augmented reality, in a future where the frame may fall away, this research attempts to ask how the a maker of images can use what is excluded by the frame in a meaningful way, and how a viewer is tasked to understand this off-frame.
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Biography
Nicholas Middleton is an artist based in London with a background in painting and print, and interests in photography, film and video.
Degrees
BA (Hons) Fine Art Printmaking, Winchester School of Art, 1997
Experience
Foundation Course Tutor, City and Guilds of London Art School, 2006-present
Awards
John Moores Prizewinner & Visitors' Choice Prizewinner, 2010; John Moores Visitors' Choice Prizewinner, 2006
Exhibitions
Vitalistic Fantasies, Cello Factory London 2020
Picture Palace, Transition Gallery London 2020
Undertow, Sluice HQ, London 2019
Made in Britain, National Museum of Poland, Gdańsk 2019
Flight Mode, APT Gallery, London 2018
Daybreak, Maverick Projects, London, 2017
Pinhole and the Art of Invention, Monty's Gallery, London, 2017
John Moores Painting Prize 2016
Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, 2016
Art:Science:Life, Ipswich Art School Gallery, Ipswich, 2016
Immediacy of Paint, Waterfront Gallery, UCS, Ipswich, 2015
London Painting Survey, Barbican Arts Project Space, London, 2015
Documentary Realism: Painting In The Digital Age, The Crypt at St Marylebone, London, 2015
Contemporary British Painting, Huddersfield Art Gallery, Huddersfield, 2014
John Moores Painting Prize 2014, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, 2014
Towards A New Socio-Painting, Transition Gallery, London, 2014
Provisional Cities, (solo exhibtion) The Crypt at St Marylebone, London, 2013
Francis Bacon To Paula Rego, Abbott Hall, Kendall, 2012
New East Anglian Painting, Ipswich Art School Gallery, Ipswich, 2012
Mostyn Open 2011, Oriel Mostyn, Llandudno, 2011
Diverse Realisms, Minories Art Gallery, Colchester, 2010
Black & White Paintings (solo exhibition), Arch Gallery, London, 2010
John Moores Painting Prize 2010
Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, 2010
"You Are Here", Liquid Gallery, London, 2009
John Moores Painting Prize 24, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, 2006
John Moores Painting Prize 23, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, 2004
Failsafe, APT Gallery, London, 2004
Defining The Times, Milton Keynes Gallery, 2000
Displacements, Void Gallery, London, 2000
Bandits-Mages, Bourges Film Festival, France, 1997
Publications
'The Burrow', Prova 4, 2018; Garageland #17: Society, 2015
Documentary Realism: Painting in the Digital Age, Robert Priseman, Sophie Cummings, Paul O'Kane, 2015
New East Anglian Painting, Simon Carter, 2012
Conferences
'Painting and the Off-Frame', Call and Response II, NAFAE Conference 2021
"It's alright apart from the fact you can hardly see anything", A Partial History of Clear As Mud, Performance Studies International, Zagreb, 2009