Nicholas Shearon
Nicholas Shearon is an illustrator and multimedia artist, working with community and collaboration. His practice focuses on the impact that creativity can have on our mental wellbeing through the medium of zines and independent print. He is currently researching a PhD at Leeds Beckett University.
This is Not a Place
“In 2025 I went to hospital for a routine operation. During my recovery I developed an infected abscess in my skull which required additional emergency surgery and a prolonged stay in hospital. The recovery was quite difficult and left me with nerve damage in the face and a part of the treatment was the prescription of the pain killer amitriptyline. The first night I took my dose I just passed out, but on subsequent nights I started feeling the medication move through my body. I decided to document this, picking up my sketchbook and drawing. These two images are pages from the resulting 100 pages of drawings I completed between my second night and my first dosage review. Spontaneous, strange, and semi-autobiographical they explore my mental state as I disconnect from my conscious mind. Each one was drawn in bed as the last thing I did before falling asleep.”
Image Description:
Exhibition photograph of artwork against a white wall in the White Column space, which is comprised of two black and white digital prints, each 85cm square, from original pencil drawings on paper and they are located one above the other. The top one depicts a woman's face drawn down the right had side of the four panels. She has wavy hair, freckles beneath her large eyes and a complex expression. Her features are seemingly impassive, no obvious emotions leap out, but her mouth is slightly downturned and her eyes open and fixed forwards. On the left is vines and text. Below on the second print is a single image that looks like three figures, made up of angular body shapes with circular looped lines for heads. The 'head' shapes are thickly drawn, dark and harsh compared to some of the more delicate lines of the bodies. The body shapes have sharp corners and repeated scribbled shading, but these are more smudged and faded, as if they have been repeatedly erased and drawn over. The figures have a gentle lean to them, as if they are stooping to listen to something at the left-hand side of the page, or possibly following each other in a line. The image is abstract and open to interpretating, but the white space around them and the sharp outline has a menacing and lonely atmosphere.
Audio Description:
PDF of Zine:
https://freight.cargo.site/m/E2912389273636349279346622742294/This-is-Not-a-Place---Nicholas-Shearon.pdf
External Links:
Instagram: www.instagram.com/thenickgonzo