Nicholas Borden, Artist

Originally from the West Country, Nicholas came to London to study Graphics at St Martins College of Art and then Communications at the Royal College of Art, and he recalls the first time he visited the East End. “I remember coming to a party on Brick Lane, it was quite an eye-opener to a boy from Devon – certainly different and exciting, I suppose.” he confided, “And this has been the area of London I have always come back to.” After graduation Nicholas returned to Devon and he took jobs in factories and warehouses, without making any art for several years. “I gave it up,” he confessed with frown of regret, withdrawing into himself, “Then I had my car stolen and the people who took it broke into my flat when I was there, that was real low point for me.”
Coming back to live with his brother in the East End, Nicholas started making pictures again. “I returned to the kind of work I did as a teenager, doing line drawings,” he explained modestly, revealing how he liberated himself from the problematic experience of his college education and regained emotional possession of his artistic endeavours by picking up a personal thread.
Of course, there is a sophisticated technique that belies itself in these elegant pictures, but more significantly there is a joy in the medium that grants them an immediate appeal. “This is a re-invention, I feel I have completely transformed myself,” Nicholas assured me, surprised at his own words.
Even though he has not yet shown any of these pictures or had an exhibition, I know you will be seeing more of the work of Nicholas Borden. But in the meantime, if you spot him on a street corner in the East End, you are licensed to go up and say, “hello.”