Nick Holdsworth

In 1998, Nick Holdsworth established his own fashion label, ‘Purple Om / Random,’ which quickly became a cult T-shirt brand distributed worldwide in renowned department stores such as Harvey Nichols, Harrods, Liberty’s, Collette in Paris, and Barney’s in Tokyo. Nick’s pioneering approach capitalized on the ‘90s fascination with psychedelic imagery and youth culture, solidifying himself as one of the early designer T-shirt label brands.

Nick’s creative process in detail...

Nick’s artistic process is a captivating blend of modern techniques and nostalgic inspiration. He combines digital manipulation, creative graphics, and hand-painting to craft powerful images. Each piece is centred around a specific graphic, often a famous brand logo associated with the subject, resulting in a unique fusion of past and future influences.

Nick begins by researching his chosen subject and selects images online to start the process, this always begins with retouching the image and enhancing it by removing imperfections and adjusting details through Photoshop’s layered approach. He isolates all elements and colours into separate layers, sometimes hundreds depending on the complexity of the piece allowing focused refinement. Nick will often incorporate additional details from other images, integrating them seamlessly through masking.

Subsequently, he then pixelates the image, with different sized pixels in different areas to give depth and focus, he then overlays it with his chosen repeated icon, again at different sizes, this will often be a recognisable brand logo or acronym that’s associated with the subject ensuring the graphics remain visible and harmonious. He’s then left with a monochromatic mosaic.

Once the mosaic is created Nick then adds colour to each layer, digitally hand-painting with a tablet, using the layers he’s created to lighten contrast or flatten tones in order to colour the visual which he’ll use for reference for the final airbrushed painting. The finished visual contains layers with colour swatches that Nick will use to mix his inks.

Then for the final stage, Nicks very carefully and meticulously hand paints the mosaic with ink and an adding, colour, tone, form and detail, further perfecting the final piece over many hours. Nicks more detailed pieces, in particular his locations and architectural works can take 40-60hrs to create and paint. With an additional week of finishing, which involves sealing and varnishing every 24hrs, before mounting. Nick currently undertakes every stage himself to assure the highest quality.