Nina Ogden: Sleight of the Canopy
Nina Ogden’s Sleight of the Canopy invites a deeper contemplation of nature’s illusions. Rooted in her experience as a scenic painter for film and television, Ogden’s practice is shaped by the visual language of artifice and spectacle, drawing from film’s inherent deception, trickery, and illusion. These simulated modes of reality feed into her fine art practice, leaving her questioning where the truth of what we see really lies.
Through the lens of Baudrillard’s notion of 'simulation' and the 'hyperreal,' Ogden's paintings explore the possibilities of truth versus trickery—the physical world converging with the virtual. The title references sleight of hand magic—an apt metaphor for Ogden’s work, which manipulates light and material to conjure a sense of wonder and misdirection. The word 'sleight' contains 'light' within it, reinforcing how integral light is to her practice—not only illuminating but concealing, revealing, and distorting.
Ogden’s process begins with a collection of images—photos taken on walks through Kew Gardens, London Zoo’s reptile tanks, or film set arrangements—that spark ideas and evolve through drawing. She transfers these onto linen or wooden panels, favouring coloured grounds and translucent, highly pigmented paints that allow light to pass through the layers, evoking a shimmering, otherworldly quality.
There’s a performative aspect to Ogden’s practice, as the physicality of working on large-scale pieces mirrors the drama of scenic painting. Light becomes a tool of both boundary and transgression—an echo of her time peering through two-way mirrors on the set of Big Brother, where artificial environments and voyeuristic spaces questioned what is real and what is mere illusion. These artificial landscapes, with their dreamlike yet unsettling atmosphere, feel almost Lynchian and yet they harken to a future of man-made environments, underscoring the tension between nature and human intervention in the face of climate change.
Ultimately, Sleight of the Canopy is an invitation to look closer—beyond the canopy of nature, past the lens flares and painted surfaces—to glimpse the elusive interplay between truth and trickery. It is a celebration of the hidden, the hyperreal, and the hypnotic dance of light and shadow.
