Nikolas Demasi grew up in the outback town of Broken Hill, situated in the remote New South Wales.   This is where his love for the rich arid colours has stemmed from. His father was a miner and his mother worked at the RSL Club. He remembers when he was younger being intrigued in the arts, being drawn to painting, sculpture and mixed media from a very young age.
Demasi has been greatly influenced by both the rich landscape and the eccentric ‘bush artists’ of that region. The remnants of his bush upbringing are subtly apparent in his large, expressive, emotionally powerful paintings. The outback theme is often contrasted by a sense of urban grit and chaos to further veil his works in an element of mystique.
“Art is an emotional response. I filter environments, manmade and natural, to bring to the canvas an emotional interpretation of places through form, and colour, and what is around me. I paint and decipher the moods and feelings that are pushed apon me by nature, environments, people, and technology. ”
Each painting is a significant piece of an on-going biographical account of Demasi’s life. Some from the immediate past and others travel further back in time to childhood encounters.
Colour takes a leading role in the paintings. At times it is decadently slathered on in unabashed portions and in contrast washed over the surface as a thin stain like a water impression which remains almost seeing through to the bone of the raw canvas left in its natural state.
“All my paintings are painted with a different palette, part of the challenge is for a series of works to compliment one another, but really bounce off one another. I think it is what people get an emotional stir from”.