I’m a huge fan of Basil Wolvertone’s “Spacehawk” [+]

Nicolas Nadé on growing plants, spontaneity and his wonderfully sequential illustrations. The French illustrator has been keeping busy. Not only has he published a multitude of zines, but he’s also started to add a splash of colour to his usually monochromatic pieces. Since 2016, much has progressed for Nicolas Nadé. The French illustrator — who made his debut on the site with his monochromatic book Nobu — has published a multitude of fanzines, including personal endeavours and works for publishers such as Otto Press, Entropy Monstrous, plus collectives including Realms II, Le Petit Néant, and Belgian friends from Super-Structure. But that’s not it — Nicolas has also produced album artworks for Fulgeance and Bernard Grancher, and he’s published his first long-form comic with Éditions Matière, titled Quelques Miettes à géométrie variable. “I am very attached to the process,” Nicolas tells It’s Nice That, on the topic of how his style has evolved over the course of four years. “I like spending my time researching, testing, experimenting with new techniques, while trying to limit my tools. Therefore my style evolves in parallel with the process. Many things that I use are the result of an accident or variations because I improvise a lot.” Still predominantly keeping to a black and white colour palette, it’s clear that Nicolas has landed on his aesthetic. Perhaps this stems from his long-standing relationship with the medium, driven by a need and desire to draw constantly. “I always draw,” he adds, “I try to draw every day, even if it’s a little sketch done in three minutes in a sketchbook.” Nicolas also studied art in school, which opened up his eyes to the experimental works of filmmakers Peter Tscherkassky, Peter Kubelka and Paul Sharits. “It was while studying them that I became interested in repetition and sequences; I found it fascinating watching them on film, they were like a comic strip on a 35mm stripe.” As for his technique, the self-taught illustrator adheres to the natural flow of things, spontaneously doing what he does without really thinking about it. Alongside this, Nicolas is drawn to the everyday for his inspiration. This can be elements from architecture, music, photography, plants, user manuals, films, plans, models, board games or video games. “I make up a glossary of forms,” he says, adding how he grows caudex plants in order to harness his creativity. “I love to see their roots when I put them in a larger pot. Caudex roots are the most important part of this plant. Like an iceberg, the roots are the biggest part of these kinds of plants; it’s like an invisible life, an invisible sequence conducted by the soil and pot.” Once inspired, Nicolas gathers his Rotring tools, his template or laser cutter and screen tones. Then, he builds on an idea that’s been patiently brewing in his sketchbook and he lets the process guide him. “I never know in advance what it will be — I sometimes have unrelated drawings and I try to draw the connections between them.” Ringing true to his improvised way of working, Nicolas has taken a brief step away from his usual style and has completed a colourful array of illustrations for his Distance fanzine, published via Otto Press. Sitting alongside his monochromatic panels, the colourful spreads are a nice turn for Nicolas. “I’m a huge fan of Basil Wolvertone’s Spacehawk, especially his colours and his work on inking and weft. I was very inspired by him for this book,” he adds on the matter, before telling us how this “ben-day dots technique” – a commercial printing technique that uses small dots of colours — is what really drove him. “You can switch from one colour to another by simply doubling the density of a coloured screen tone.” Although working sporadically, the addition of colour was in most part an intentional decision. As we speak, he concludes: “I’ve realised that I should make more coloured drawings!” [-]

Nicolas Nadé uses Abstract Formalist Comics to examine the dialectics of nature and the artificial, and the ontology of representation [+]

FRENCH ABSTRACT FORMALIST COMICS (FRENCH STRUCTURAL COMICS): AN ARTISTIC MOVEMENT In the mid-2010s, a group of young French artists began creating wordless comics with geometric and minimalist style and little or no narrative. What they show instead is more of a “process”. The emotionless and mechanical style and lack of narrative and words lead the reader to focus on the formal qualities and abstract concepts of comics, visual art, and printed media, such as space-time, movement, body, sign, texture, representation, transformation, repetition/difference, etc. I call this new budding movement French Abstract Formalist Comics. They are “Abstract” Formalist comics not because they do not show representational images —they do, and this is a critical difference between them and Abstract Comics— but because they show abstract narrative and study abstract and formalist themes, concepts, and motives. They could also be called French Structural Comics, because they are similar to works of Structural Cinema such as Michael Snow’s Wavelength (1968). They share a physical environment, geography, and period; artistic forms (style, aesthetics of comics); themes and motives; and formal as well as the structural features of comics, printed media, and visual art. They also share a community and platform. The prime example is the anthology Lagon, edited by Alexis Beauclair, Jean-Philippe Bretin, Bettina Henni, and Sammy Stein, all of whom are French Structural Comics artists, though not every work in Lagon is Structural Comics. (For example, Simon Hanselman was in it). Éditions Matière, which has had the seminal influence on the development of the movement, publishes many FSC. [...] Nicolas Nadé uses Abstract Formalist Comics to examine the dialectics of nature and the artificial, and the ontology of representation. Nadé’s drawing-based works employ the grammar of Abstract Formalist Comics but with some irregularities. The geometric style of FSC naturally implies some objectivity, but these irregularities invite the question of the existence of the artist. Imagined monuments frequent Nadé’s world and ask if they are imagined or abstracted. Do they belong to nature (the universe)? What is this object that the artist created? If it does not exist, how do we know it? [...] [-]

Visual loops are exposed or two narrative strands are combined, which may have started off having nothing to do with each other [+]

CAPTURING IMPROVISATION Early on, Nicolas Nadé was inspired by the various forms of repetition and creating variations within these. This is also one way of explaining his interest in the experimental cinema of Paul Sharits and Peter Kubelka or in minimal music. Nadé compares his approach with overlaying various screen tones which, when shifted only slightly, can achieve entirely different optical effects. Graphic compositions arise intuitively and only become a narrative construction at a later stage with the aid of module arrangements. He often starts off by defining the starting and end point and is open for the story unfolding in between. Visual loops are exposed or two narrative strands are combined, which may have started off having nothing to do with each other. Image mutations from 2D to 3D are also possible, which break through the limitations of flat space. Nadé’s pleasure in initially concealed places of narration has a strong appeal in his work. He talks enthusiastically about macrophotography, which unveils textures invisible to the naked eye, or the complexity of a rootstock in botany, which cannot be intimated on the surface texture, or architectural plans which have an entirely different narrative for him than would be revealed by observing a house from the outside. IMPROVISATION EINFANGEN Nicolas Nadé begeisterte sich schon früh für Formen der Repetition und dafür, innerhalb dieser Variationen zu erschaffen. So lässt sich auch sein Interesse für das Experimentalkino von Paul Sharits und Peter Kubelka oder Minimal Music erklären. Nadé vergleicht sein Vorgehen mit dem Überlagern verschiedener Rasterfolien, die — nur leicht verschoben — sehr unterschiedliche optische Effekte erzielen können. Bildkompositionen entstehen intuitiv und werden erst später mithilfe von Modularrangements zu einem erzählerischen Konstrukt. Oft definiert er zunächst Anfangs- und Endpunkt und ist offen für die Geschichte, die sich dazwischen entwickelt. Visuelle Loops werden freigelegt oder zwei Erzählstränge, die zu Beginn nichts miteinander zu tun haben, kombiniert. Ebenso sind Bildmutationen von 2D zu 3D möglich, die die Eingeschränktheit des flachen Raums durchbrechen. Nadés Freude an zunächst versteckten Orten der Erzählung findet Anklang in seiner Arbeit. Begeistert berichtet er von Makrofotografie, welche Strukturen zutage fördert, die mit bloßem Auge nicht zu erkennen sind, oder von der Komplexität eines Wurzelstocks in der Botanik, die an der Oberfläche nicht zu erahnen ist, genauso wie von Architekturplänen, die für ihn völlig andere Narrative innehaben, als die Betrachtung eines Hauses von außen vermuten lässt. [-]