Nicholas Todhunter, born in Paris in 1981, has lived and worked across Europe, America and Asia. He studied a foundation at the Chelsea School of Art in London before moving to Florence to study at the Charles Cecil Studios, the only atelier in Europe where traditional realism was taught. He spent three years there, learning drawing and painting and being introduced to the visual language and techniques of painters from earlier centuries. For Todhunter, portraiture is the ultimate subject matter and working primarily in oil, he creates life-size portraits of his friends and family. Borrowing inspiration from Titian, Velazquez, Rembrandt, Turner, not to mention Francis Bacon, Todhunter’s portraits have a timeless quality. His muted palette and his sitter’s often simple attire suggest that they could be from any century. Indeed, without the distraction of bright or decorative clothing which would give some indication of a sitter’s profession or style, Todhunter uses light to guide the viewer’s eye through the subject’s face. Here we see their personality, thoughtfulness, seriousness, playfulness.

Todhunter shows that portraits are more than just a likeness of people. He employs the dramatic chiaroscuro techniques of the Italian Renaissance painters alongside a soft expressive line to give his subjects an ephemeral quality; they are at once coming into focus and dissolving into their backgrounds. This transitory feel charges his sitters with energy and imbues them life so that through each highlight it is as if they have just turned and caught the light. In paintings such as ‘Marco’ this light gives his sitter a saintly quality. “We have a short moment of existence, and it’s a way of crystallizing time and of crystallizing the moment of one’s existence. Why one wants to do this you may say is a mystery. Because we can’t ever know whether we’ve done it. The point to painting is that it is a different language. Its an attempt to translate your sensation. Everything that you feel about the mystery of life, the pain, the vision, the joy, the despair, the sorrow, the happiness, life, death.”

Nicholas Todhunter works between Somerset and Venice where he works obsessively to understand the methods and techniques of the great classical art that the city has to offer. For him, Venice is the heart of portraiture and is the source of limitless inspiration. Nicholas has exhibited throughout Europe and is held in private collections throughout the world.