Nick Hais has been a full time painter since 1976. During his career he has been both a successful art gallery owner and co-author of popular colour theory book 'Mix Your Own Acrylics.’ Nick's paintings are to be found in various corporate and private collections including those of Accenture, Lucida plc, P&O, Prudential plc, and Craig Venter. He regularly exhibits both nationally and internationally.

His paintings, exclusively produced in acrylic, mainly depict fragmented parts of larger scenes. He concentrates on the finer details experimenting with line, shape and colour pictorial geometries Occasionally his view extends wider to encompass more of a complete scene, which are often simple; devoid of characters while the shape and patterns of the buildings dominate. The most striking part of his work is the colour; beautifully and strongly rendered. For Nick the most important element of his work, opposed to any conceptual meaning, is its visual manifestation:

'After many years thought I have come to the conclusion that the less said about painting the better.'

His artistic career began when he graduated from Newcastle Polytechnic with a First Class Dip.A.D. in 1971. He was awarded a Walter Neurath Art Book Prize and for the next four years he taught part-time on the Fine Art Degree Course at Newcastle.

Nick has spent some time living in Greece where he had a number of highly successful exhibitions. In 1979 Nick and his family moved to Dorset. From 1987 until the end of 2004, together with his partner Jill, Nick owned and ran The Alpha Gallery in Swanage, Dorset. He also became an author, co-writing a very popular colour theory book (under the name Nick Harris), with Jill Mirza, titled 'Mix Your Own Acrylics', which was first published in 1995. "I enjoy the brilliance of rich and vibrant light which, when reflected, creates living shadows. I use this quality as it relates to objects and scenes that display inherent geometries, such as buildings and boats. The result is that my paintings are structured compositions of enhanced clarity. My paintings are built up in layers of thin paint. This means that they develop slowly, as this way of painting requires a degree of precision. It is rather an uncompromising method.

The Colomb Art Gallery is proud to exhibit a number of paintings by the British artist Nick Hais. View all art by Nick Hais.