Alexander Simpson otherwise known as his minimalist moniker Nice Pablo is a Wellington based mutli-media artist hailing from the coastal expanse of Tauranga.
Speaking with Alex about Nice Pablo and broadly about art is particularly captivating. Alex does not flaunt his ego nor reserve pretensions about his capabilities as an artist, much like the vibrant minimal work Alex illustrates confidence and passion on the inner soul of what art and the desire to create is; a pure feeling within reflected outwards by way of medium, with each stroke of the brush Alex paints each line with precision and purpose evident by his intricate planning process as motifs of vibrant blue, green and orange colours flutter with clouds and checkers upon the canvas.
Synthesising Pablo Picasso and timeless controversial enfant terribles Kanye West is an essential component in delving into the Pablo persona. The double-entendre for Pablo illustrates both key inspirations within a single name for one cannot have Kanye without Pablo and Nice Pablo without both Kanye West and Pablo Picasso. Alex combines these influences into his own style in ambition and work ethic transcend time period and visual style.
It is in this vein that I wish to quote the infamous Leonard Cohen poem "Kanye West is not Picasso" in which Cohen affirms:
"Kanye West is not Picasso, I am Picasso,
Kanye West is not Edison, I am Edison,
I am Tesla...I am the Kanye West of Kanye West..I am Tesla, I am his coil"
Such a quote perfectly encapsulates Alex’s work ethic as he firstly adopts an aesthetic then shapes aspects into his own style and impressions onto the canvas in both homage and tribute. One could substitute the names in the poem for the painters Alex has referenced as Alex is and yet is not Pablo.
Alex’s spectrum of homage and tribute span from the renaissance iconographic paintings of Caravaggio depicting Thomas’ doubt, the desperate loneliness which shrouds Edward Hopper’s figures to French house duo Daft Punk displaying Pablo’s malleability. These experiments of culture remixing illuminate a certain "Pablocation'' of art history that represents a Warhol-esque post-pop art ethos wherein every and any tradition can be recontextualised within Nicepablo's world, a parallel universe where all that is and was is Pablo, a bright vibrant fantasy land where Chimeras wander and the line between dream and reality blur.
Exploring Alex's efforts outside painting merely scratches the surface of his ambition as Alex also ventures out into the real - designing clothing, ceramics, figurines and street art which exude the breadth Pablo’s avenues of creativity over and above the canvas.
Nicepablo marches on to make ever vibrant, unique and striking work as Alex continues to find inspiration and continuing to work by way of reflecting on his art for each piece comes something to improve upon or draw on, or reinvent.
- Adam Goddard