March 6, 2025 |
With a single step into a quiet room, its walls empty except for the framed painting in front of you, you feel as if you’ve been transported to a sun-dappled glade. Leaves, their veins all apparent, flowers in full bloom, twisting branches, flickering light. Except you’re still inside Incubator, the Chiltern Street gallery that uplifts emerging fine artists; you’ve simply become immersed in a Nina Ogden masterpiece.
A scenic painter hailing from North Wales and based in London, Ogden has a certain cinematic quality to her work. It’s part of what makes her landscapes so special. That, and her experimental attitude. “[As a child] I was always ‘making’ things, like potions from bathroom stuff or papier mâché balloons,” she tells 10. “[In Snowdonia, where I grew up] we had this incredible garden surrounded by fields and lots of sheep! I spent a lot of my time, strolling alone in the fields, gazing up at the forest that stood above the hill and letting my imagination run wild with thoughts of eerie goings on. My parents always encouraged my creativity, and after finishing a foundation course in Falmouth, I moved to London to study at the Wimbledon School of Art.”
In London, Ogden found her footing as an illustrator at first. “Drawing was my thing, and instead of painting, I was making films and drawings. Video art was fashionable at the time and hardly anyone was painting,” she says. The Wimbledon School of Art is actually known for its prestigious film and theatre programmes, and through her studies, Ogden eventually found herself providing “scenic paint finishes for anyone that needed it!” That meant backdrops and set pieces – projects like large-scale murals for film productions and intricate trompe l’oeil details.
Later in life, while “juggling a family and work (not ideal!)” Ogden took a leap and applied for a masters at the RCA. “I was over the moon to get a place and supported by a full scholarship too was a dream come true. The Royal College [of Art] was a whole different experience from Wimbledon,” she says. “Everyone was using paint, even making their own. We were just coming out of the [Covid-19] lockdown, and there was this sense of returning to earthly, visceral materials after being so reliant on technology,” she says. “I found my tribe there and I now have a supportive network of artists around me as a result.”
Now, until March 30, Ogden is showing her work at Incubator with a solo exhibition dubbed Sleight of the Canopy. There, she invites viewers to peer beyond the painted surface into a world of hidden truths and illusions. “I chose the title after researching the inner workings of sleight-of-hand magic. Sleight suggests trickery, but also light – which is incredibly important to my work. It suggests a glimpse, a slight opening through nature’s curtains to the world beyond.”
Her fascination with illusion stems from her time in film. “I draw inspiration from the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, particularly the scene where Dorothy and friends reveal the inner workings of the wizard – an old man operating a giant puppet behind a green curtain. He instructs them to “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.” However, paying attention and looking beyond is exactly what I want the viewer to do.”
Much of the work in the show has been produced over the last two years. Her newest pieces, Harvest Maiden and Visitant 1 and 2, were inspired by photographs of cornfields in southern France. “I’ve always been interested in folklore and magic. My favourite movie is the 1973 British folk horror film The Wicker Man, and there’s something irresistible about the allure and mystery of the cornfield. Corn has long symbolised harvest, abundance and femininity – from Demeter in Greek mythology to Isis in Egyptian lore. The harvest maiden was often depicted as a corn doll, tied to midsummer rituals and the guarantee of a successful harvest.”
Her process is as layered as her paintings. “I have a treasure trove of images that I collect. There are pictures I took myself in nature, setups from film shoots, trips to Kew Gardens and London Zoo, especially the reptile tanks! I keep going through them, at home, on the bus, wherever I go, until one sparks an idea or a combination of ideas with something else.” After sketching, she marks up the composition onto linen or wood, often using coloured grounds to make the image come alive and at times, leaving her canvas exposed. “Once everything is set up, I usually choose a limited colour palette of high-quality, highly pigmented paint,” she says. “I prefer translucent pigments that let light pass through the layers. I use everything – brushes, rags, toothbrushes, cotton buds.” The challenge? “Figuring out how to finish the picture!”
Ogden’s time at the RCA also pushed her towards new ideas. “I worked as a photo-real painting assistant to Brit artists [before]. As a result, I adopted this style of painting in my own work. It was meticulous and slow and didn’t quite fulfill what I was trying to say,” she says. “At the RCA, I wanted to move away from this type of painting to something more painterly and expressive.” Her research into the hyper-real (“the idea that the artificial becomes more real than actual reality”) for her thesis, led her to holography, working with Martin Richardson, who created holograms for David Bowie’s The Hours album. Seeing his hologram collection made her “question reality” itself. Inspired by this, Ogden strives for this “artificial hyper-real glow” in her own paintings. “Much of my colour palettes have been influenced by the holographic spectrum, and this body of work [Sleight of the Canopy] is a step towards achieving this elusive glow.”
Nina Ogden
That sense of light and illusion has been with her since her time as a scenic painter. “I spent years on dark film stages with dramatic lighting. My experience in those conditions has influenced my work. I’m thinking about light and the idea of human presence. Stage lighting tries to create a realistic scene, but when you get up close, it becomes fascinatingly artificial,” she says. “I once worked on the iconic [TV] show Big Brother, which was a voyeuristic experience. I was in a dark ‘camera run’ that surrounded the set, and I looked through a two-way mirror into a brightly lit artificial environment. That experience fed into my ideas about light and boundaries,” she says. “There were times when I got bored, and I would pull back the curtains of the two-way mirrors and watch these manipulated beings do things like eyebrow plucking, leg shaving, and even mental breakdowns. Sometimes, they would knock on the glass, desperate to break the boundary.” That push and pull of reality and illusion stuck with her. “Light is such a useful tool for an artist. Its ability to create boundaries, highlight, or mask makes it irresistible to a painter.”
For Ogden, painting remains a kind of performance. “Scenic painting was messy, and physically demanding – I’m scaling up my pieces now to bring that energy back.” And though she’s left behind the fast-paced world of film sets, some habits die hard. “I learned never to be too precious. One day, you pour everything into a backdrop, and the next, it’s in a skip.”
What’s next? “My work will be on display at The Hari Hotel in Belgravia as part of an exhibition showcasing recent female graduates. Additionally, my paintings are part of the Ashurst Art Collection at The London Fruit and Wool Exchange on Liverpool Street.” But beyond that, she says, “I want to keep experimenting – particularly with biomaterials and bioluminescence.” All the things that inform her work.” But in the end, her attention always returns to that green curtain.
Photography courtesy of Nina Ogden and Incubator.
