Christian Nicolay

Christian Nicolay received a travel grant from the Canada Council in the summer of 2000 to hitchhike across Canada with a wooden chair mapping his travels with a sound recording of the unusual and unexpected moments of transition between moving and sitting. Recently he did a commissioned sound work for a National Radio Broadcast with CBC Radio One across Canada. This sound performance consisted of climbing and transforming the Lions Gate Bridge in Vancouver into a musical instrument, reconstructing the naturally occurring sounds into a harmonic musical composition.

His interdisciplinary art practice combines performance, mixed media drawing, sound recording, installation and video – often simultaneously playing with notions of chance, spontaneity and humor, exploring the relationships between order and chaos, and the unity of opposites. He summarizes his art and life by “paying attention to systematic confusion”.

Christian Nicolay has been the recipient of several visual and media arts awards, artistic director, and curator of various projects, includes collaborations with artists from various fields in video, performance, sound and installation. He has given several lectures about his work, and has exhibited and performed in numerous spaces worldwide including Public, Commercial, and Artist Run Art galleries.

He graduated from the Okanagan University College – (UBC Okanagan) with his BFA at the top of his class receiving the Helen Pitt Award in 2000. He has worked as a mixed media, painting and drawing instructor for Arts Umbrella since 2004.

View Art Gallery is hosting a joint exhibition with Christian Nicolay and Yuri Arajs “Point Of Reference” April 9 – May 8, 2010. See Exhibition images below.