Nicholas May was born in Limavady in 1962. He attended Bath Academy of Art (1981–1984) and later, for his Master’s, Goldsmiths College in London (1988–1990).
While he was still a student at Goldsmiths College, May’s work was included in the Institute of Contemporary Arts’ New Contemporaries exhibition in London in 1989. The event, known as Young Contemporaries until 1989 when the organisation became independent, is a staple annual exhibition of student work. Building off this exposure, May held his first solo show the following year at U7 Contemporary Art, in London.
May’s roots are those of his era. Conceptualism seeps into the endless redefinitions of paintings. Aesthetically, traces of Morris Louis’s (and to a certain extent Clement Greenberg’s) abstract or ‘American’ formalism – which centres around accepting the medium of painting’s essential qualities such as flatness, abstraction and colour- shine through. The UK had its own representatives of this pictorial philosophy, such as Jules Olitski and Larry Poons.
Nevertheless, it was his desire to constantly push his own practice that set May apart and, with time, came to define his practice. Indeed, he has been endlessly determined to push the form of his painting into new and untested areas, employing new materials and techniques, all the while questioning the nature of painting itself.
As his list of solo exhibitions show, May experienced the heights of his popularity during the 1990s. But rather than rely on the tried and tested aesthetic tropes that had carried him so far, he devised an entirely new process resulting in an entirely new formal vernacular, initiating a new chapter of his practice. In doing such, May has allowed himself to parallel the mainstream development of the pictorial medium all while carving his own path and ensuring that his own originality persists. In self-reinvention May found consistency.
May’s most noticeable solo exhibitions include: U7 Contemporary Art, London (1990); John Hansard Gallery, Southampton (1990); Frith Street Gallery, London (1991); Victoria Miro Gallery, London (1994); Cornerhouse, Manchester (1994); South London Gallery (1994); Leeds Metropolitan University Gallery, Leeds (1994); Victoria Miro Gallery, London (1996); 291 Gallery, London (1998); Riflemaker, London (2004); and Galeria Fruela, Madrid (2007).
