Nadia Epping - Art

About Nadia Epping (nee Klamp)

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Work

Trained at Kunstakademie Duesseldorf in my native Germany, I have explored a wide variety of media in my artistic practice in the past. Currently mainly painting acrylic on paper or canvas, my work explores architecture and the remains of human activity in landscape, with a specific focus on industrial history. 
Highlighting the way humanity exploits natural as well as human resources is something that informs my choice of subject matter when painting sites like quarries, mines and industrial buildings of my new home in the South of Wales and further afield. 

I have had a longstanding fascination with the Welsh landscape, since first visiting as a teenager. I am equally inspired by the industrial past of the south Wales valleys, quarries within Bannau Brycheiniog National Park or the slate mines of north Wales. My work also draws inspiration from visits to UK coastlines in Pembrokeshire and beyond.
Looking beyond natural beauty, I seek out sites that speak to the developments that have shaped today's landscape and the people within it - despite humans being conspiciously absent from the actual paintings. But through this absence they speak even more to the actual damage that the now mainly dead industries have done in the process of reshaping the land. In turn the emptiness of the paintings highlights the effect the post-industrial closure of the coal, slate or limestone mines has had on communities who formerly proudly earned their living from them. 

The locations I choose to paint are today mainly deserted and they and their stories are often bypassed by tourists in the national parks, who often only come for the stunning natural beauty spots. I have made highlighting them at the same time as appreciating their unexpected beauty the underlying current in my paintings. 

Spending time on location is an important part of my process. When taking reference photos or drawing, I concentrate on unusual perspective and textures, often deliberately chosing a juxtaposition of natural landscape with the industrial relics. Starting out with an underlying drawing in the studio, I put on multiple thin layers of paint with a palette knife, achieving a painterly finish within the details of the painting surface which is still reminiscent of the source material, but often quite independent in terms of actual object colour. 

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Bio
Born in 1971 near Cologne Germany, I now live and work in Crickhowell, Wales. 

 

In 2000 I graduated from Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in Germany (degree 'Akademiebrief'). As an academic honour, I was selected 'Meisterschüler' (master student) by Prof David Rabinowitch in 1999. ​

Since graduation, I have worked as independent artist alongside several paid roles in the creative and education sectors, first in Germany and then in the UK, after relocating here in 2015. 

These included Assistant Gallery Manager in commercial art galleries and Education Co-ordinator on art projects for students. More recently, I worked as Curriculum Coordinator in creative higher education at both the Royal College of Art, London and the National Film and Television School, Beaconsfield. In my most recent role, I was employed as Project Co-ordinator in the cultural sector at Buckinghamshire Culture. 

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Since moving to Wales I am focusing on developing my creative practice full time.