Revealing the technical complexity, design, and intricate engineering of the mechanical – Nick’s work is a classic example of the fusion between science and art. He messes with dangerous radiation emitting x-ray machines to create beguilingly beautiful and incredibly detailed x-ray artworks. These are not the x-rays we are used to seeing in hospitals but amazingly complex creations that take months, if not years to create. It is common for Nick to use hundreds of separate x-rays to create large scale works. His process is painstaking and extremely unusual (not many artists have a radiation proof concrete bunker for a studio!). This is art that is at once engaging and ,upon closer inspection, dramatically revealing. There is a lot to discover in Nick’s work. The overriding pervading message is that society’s obsession with superficiality and materialism pales into insignificance compared to the importance of what we, and the world around us, is really made of. It’s what on the inside that counts.

We live in a world obsessed with image. What we look like, what our clothes look like, houses, cars… I like to counter this obsession with superficial appearance by using x-rays to strip back the layers and show what it is like under the surface. Often the integral beauty adds intrigue to the familiar. We all make assumptions based on the external visual aspects of what surrounds us and we are attracted to people and forms that are aesthetically pleasing. I like to challenge this automatic way that we react to just physical appearance by highlighting the, often surprising, inner beauty.

This society of ours, consumed as it is by image, is also becoming increasingly controlled by security and surveillance. Take a flight, or go into a high profile courtroom, and your belongings will be x-rayed. The post arriving in corporations and government departments has often been x-rayed. Security cameras track our every move. Mobile phone receptions place us at any given time. Information is key to the fight against whatever we are meant to be fighting against. To create art with equipment and technology designed to help big brother delve deeper, to use some of that fancy complicated gadgetry that helps remove the freedom and individuality in our lives, to use that apparatus to create beauty brings a smile to my face.