Nicolas Dillon
b. 1966
Resides in Blenheim
Diary entry, Enderby Island, Auckland Islands, 26th November 2022:
I was completely seduced by the island’s central fellfield, its combination of mosses, megaherbs and lichens, interspersed with stunted rata and dracophyllum. Amongst all of this were courting banded dotterels as royal albatrosses called their haunting cries to the sky. I felt wreathed by a mystic power as the wind blew in from the south-west. In fact, I said to myself I could happily die right there, my scapular picked clean by skuas and left to wither white in the wind, but that didn’t happen and we journeyed on deep into the Roaring Forties.
From the age of five, Nicolas has made images of birds. It has been his lifelong quest to come closer to the soul of nature through the act of drawing and painting. Directly observing his subjects through a high-powered telescope and binoculars is the most important part of his process, and the sketches made in these moments contain a truth and vitality that is invaluable to his finished works. Nicolas believes that by intensely studying the visible, the invisible and intangible aspects of nature are revealed.
He has painted birds and nature all around the globe from the snowy shores of Scandinavia to the desert sands of the Middle East. Most recently, with Heritage Expeditions, he journeyed to the Subantarctic Islands south of New Zealand. Nicolas has exhibited both nationally and internationally, and his paintings are held in public and private collections here in New Zealand and around the world.