{"id":3818,"date":"2026-04-27T14:12:50","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T14:12:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lilyselavieartgallery.com\/?page_id=3818"},"modified":"2026-04-27T23:19:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T23:19:11","slug":"drawing-on-past-present-a-journey-into-negative-hyper-realism","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/lilyselavieartgallery.com\/bg\/exhibitions\/drawing-on-past-present-a-journey-into-negative-hyper-realism\/","title":{"rendered":"Drawing on Past & Present (A Journey into Negative Hyper-Realism)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nik Cornwell<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Drawing on Past & Present (A Journey into Negative Hyper-Realism)<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Nik Cornwell\u2019s artistic career began with his mother\u2019s relentless request to \u201cdraw an elephant!\u201d It was an ambitious assignment for a kid in mid-1970s South East London\u2026a place where the local fauna featured plenty of pigeons but notably few trunk-bearing giants. Essentially, he was tasked with being a wildlife expert in a concrete jungle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After surviving the elephant-drawing trials of his youth, Nik headed to Lewisham College<\/strong> before leveling up with a sculpture degree from Camberwell College of Arts<\/strong>. He eventually pulled a total full circle move, returning to Lewisham College to run the show as a tutor and course leader for several programs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the last decade, he has been in a committed relationship with the medium, obsessively tweaking his style and geeking out over materials. He\u2019s been busy hoarding new techniques, living by the mantra that the learning curve is infinite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u200bAfter years of perfecting the “is that a photograph?” aesthetic, Nik stumbled upon an old sketch of his featuring some particularly moody, harsh side-lighting. Looking back at it, he realized Hyper-Realism was getting a bit of a cold shoulder from the art world. Critics and casual viewers alike were getting “bored” with perfection, tossing around dismissive comments like, “What\u2019s even the point?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u200bSince he\u2019d already stumbled upon a fix for this collective yawn, Nik decided to lean into it and develop a formal style. He officially dubbed it \u2018Negative Hyper-Realism,\u2019<\/strong> effectively giving the technical middle finger to the “too-perfect-to-be-interesting” crowd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u200bThis exhibition serves up a timeline of Nik\u2019s work from 1990 to 2025<\/strong>, handpicked by Damiyr Saleem<\/strong>. Damiyr\u2019s trajectory went from sitting in Nik\u2019s classroom at Lewisham College to becoming a talented curator, friend, and colleague. In a fitting tribute to their history, Nik only agreed to the show once he knew his former student was the one holding the curator\u2019s clipboard. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nik Cornwell Drawing on Past & Present (A Journey into Negative Hyper-Realism) Nik Cornwell\u2019s artistic career began with his mother\u2019s relentless request to \u201cdraw an elephant!\u201d It was an ambitious assignment for a kid in mid-1970s South East London\u2026a place where the local fauna featured plenty of pigeons but notably few trunk-bearing giants. Essentially, he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":33,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-with-title","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3818","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lilyselavieartgallery.com\/bg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lilyselavieartgallery.com\/bg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lilyselavieartgallery.com\/bg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lilyselavieartgallery.com\/bg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lilyselavieartgallery.com\/bg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3818"}],"version-history":[{"count":86,"href":"https:\/\/lilyselavieartgallery.com\/bg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3914,"href":"https:\/\/lilyselavieartgallery.com\/bg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3818\/revisions\/3914"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lilyselavieartgallery.com\/bg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/33"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lilyselavieartgallery.com\/bg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}