SPOTLIGHT / Nancy Cadogan, Artist
Nancy Cadogan, A Rose by Any Other Name, 2021. Photo: Nancy Cadogan Studios
For another of our spotlight interviews with creative individuals, originally featured in our Buonfresco newsletter in September 2021, we were very pleased to welcome artist Nancy Cadogan.
Nancy was the absolute ideal guest - a true lover of literature and a painter of it - as that month our theme was ‘My Word!’ Entailing an all-embracing exploration of the words of others, and considering how we channel them towards our own artistic purposes; the countless sparks and revelations found in novels, poems, and lyrics which inspire us to be creative in other forms.
Nancy Cadogan in her studio, February 2021. Photo: Nancy Cadogan Studios
Nancy is a British-American artist who has exhibited globally since 2005. Following solo shows at Frost & Reed in New York, London exhibitions Still Reading at Shapero Modern in 2017, and Mind Zero at Saatchi Gallery in 2019, she created a series of oil paintings inspired by Romantic poets and Hazlitt's 1817 essay 'On Gusto' especially for the bicentennial of Keats' death, exhibited in 2020 at the Keats Shelley House Museum in Rome.
Nancy’s paintings are contemplative and still; honed, and full of symbols and references. They are gentle, softly-edged dreamscapes; saturated, rich and intense. Books therein have an enigmatic quality and latent power, sometimes as symbols, other times as portals, talismans or treasures. Each painting invites the viewer into a meditative world to consider paintings, literature and cultural history but also to emphasise the importance of quiet and reflection. In this they encourage us to give things their due time and approach things from the inside out; interior life and emotion are given the utmost validity.
This calls to mind the words of former children's laureate, Lauren Child, "We should let children dawdle and dream" and "Lost time is so lovely." In a hectic world, there is certainly value on both these counts at any age.
Nancy Cadogan, If Only, 2019, from the Mind Zero exhibition at Saatchi Gallery. Photo: Nancy Cadogan Studios
On Books, Nancy says: “I love everything about them, from the cover to the weight, the paper, the smell and mostly the entire worlds contained within their pages… I was obsessed with the idea of the closed book. Contained, controlled, full of untapped energy. The books have changed since then… now they are often open, as if the story is still being written. My works and interests have always engaged with literature. Books are potential, intimacy, stories, language, excitement, treasures, possibility, knowledge. Books are everything!! A book contains an entire universe you can only bring to life in your imagination, if you agree to give it time. It is a tribute to privacy, an honouring of interior life.”
With such a strong symbiosis between books and painting, we were delighted to welcome Nancy to September’s Buonfresco Spotlight to answer our questions.
Nancy Cadogan, Dreaming of Rome, 2021. From the Gusto exhibition in Rome. Photo: Nancy Cadogan Studios
1. Top literary works that have inspired you?
The Select Works of Keats, and this summer I have been reading the poetry of Cavafy.
Nancy Cadogan, The Light is Outside II, 2021. From the Gusto exhibition in Rome. Photo: Nancy Cadogan Studios
2. Favourite painting with literary connections or allusions?
A painting that springs to mind is the painting by Harold Knight of his wife Laura. I am really looking forward to an exhibition that is about to open this autumn of Laura Knight's work.
Nancy Cadogan, Sometimes the Smallest Things Take Up the Most Room in your Heart, 2017. Photo: Nancy Cadogan Studios
3. The place of books in your paintings?
I enjoy using the motif of books as emblems of private worlds.
Nancy Cadogan, In the Minor Key, 2017. Photo: Nancy Cadogan Studios
4. What place does literature have in your life?
I just enjoy reading; I have always enjoyed reading and the use of words - myMother is a writer and my Father is an academic, so I come from quite a wordbased family.
Nancy Cadogan, Where the Wild Things Grow II, 2022. Photo: Nancy Cadogan Studios
5. Novel, poem or biography?
To curl up with, I would choose a novel but to savour in a more painterly way I would choose poetry.
Nancy Cadogan, A Study of Quinces, 2022. Photo: Nancy Cadogan Studios
6. A book you treasure above all others?
Probably my copy of the poetry of Auden.
Nancy Cadogan, Time Present Time Past, 2022. Photo: Nancy Cadogan Studios
SEE MORE
Follow Nancy’s Instagram to see her studio and current projects, and visit her website to view previous work.
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