Patch Portrait: Tinton Falls Artist Scott Nickerson

For anyone who has ever simply driven past Monmouth University and looked up at the stately Wilson Hall, the administrative office building of the school, there is a feeling of awe over the beauty and majesty of the place. 

Programmed, as we are to recognize impressiveness, grandeur, Wilson Hall elicits thoughts of statesmen, of kings, of magnates the likes of which are the stuff of history and movies. For a filmmaker it is a great backdrop. For the students and professors who attend, it is a great temple of high learning and for an artist, it is a great subject.

Tinton Falls resident, artist and Red Bank instructor Scott Nickerson said it was visions of Wilson Hall from a car window that intrigued and enchanted him.

“Whenever I drove past it,” he said. “I’d think about how great it would be to paint it or use it as a backdrop. So I’d mention that I’d love to get in there and use it for my work.” 

Nickerson, who teaches art at Colorest Studios in Red Bank, was fortunate, or Monmouth University was, that one of his students, Vaune Peck, was also an employee of the school. Peck helped Nickerson connect the dots and the artist was soon on-board to create a body of work for a Visions of Wilson Hall show.

Interestingly - or perhaps understandably - at the same time Nickerson was musing about painting the place, another Jersey resident, Timothy W. Jahn of East Brunswick was also inquiring. The two artists were granted access to the grounds and the halls and stairwells and the roof and everywhere they needed and wanted to go to capture the space on canvas. The university even granted the two men time in Wilson Hall, after-hours. Nickerson admitted that the size, silence and maze-like dark hallways and staircases were a bit intimidating when darkness fell. 

“It was spooky getting around this place,” he said. “Imagine being the only person in this huge, old mansion late at night. Your imagination takes over.”

Apparently inspiration takes over as well. Nickerson’s Wilson Hall paintings are beautiful, sprawling and even photo-accurate, with enough golden fantasy light that something of the impossible royalty of a place like Wilson Hall is captured on canvas through the imagination.

The mansion was used as the backdrop for the 1982 John Huston film, Annie, the story of the little orphan and her adoptive millionaire father, Daddy Warbucks.  Nickerson, a classic realist portrait artist, reimagined moments and even locations in Wilson Hall, to create a powerful portrait of Warbucks and a whimsical, hopeful image of Annie. Nickerson adapted lighting and decorative accents, switching the original hand-painted cherubs on the wall in his Annie piece, in order to support the mood of the portrait.

Nickerson said exploring the possibility of subjects, as well as technique to imagine those subjects was the most gratifying part of his work at Wilson. 

“This show,” he said. "Gave me the freedom to paint what I found interesting, using the techniques I felt would best express my own personality.”

Nickerson, originally of Jersey City, attended School of Visual Arts in New York, studying under notable artist Steven Assael.

"When I made it to art school, everything started to click,” said Nickerson. "I could finally see the exact direction I wanted to go in with portraiture.”

Under Assael's tutelage, Nickerson learned about color temperatures, and a multi-stage process of layering paint and glaze, which creates a translucent quality with more warmth and natural skin tones.

Since graduating with honors from SVA, Nickerson has continued his education at the Art Students League in New York and at Studio Incamminati in Philadelphia under the direction of world-renowned artist Nelson Shanks.

When not attending class or working on commissions, Nickerson teaches day and evening classes at Colorest. Nickerson has been teaching oil painting and drawing from the figure for 12 years. Nickerson is also involved in numerous art organizations, including the Portrait Society of America, and the American Society of Portrait Artists.

Visions of Wilson Hall runs until the 11th of March at the Ice House Gallery, behind Wilson Hall. Nickerson (11 finished paintings) and Jahn’s work hangs upstairs. The works of their students hangs in the lower Ice House Gallery. Be sure to go downstairs,the work of their students is also quite remarkable. All of Nickerson’s pieces are presently for sale and will continue to be so after the show concludes. To connect with Nickerson or to see more of his impressive work visit his website at: www.scottnickersonfinearts.com.

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