AFTER organising and successfully hosting his first solo art exhibition last year, local artist Nicholas Huggins said he would wait some years before doing another, because of the extent of work that went into it.
But while artists may take breaks, creativity never truly goes on vacation. Huggins returns to the Art Society, Port of Spain, on December 14 with another exhibition, titled Field Trip.
Huggins grew up in St Ann's and Maraval. He attended the Bishop Anstey Junior School, and then St Mary's College.
He also studied graphic design at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia, US.
The founder of Backyard Design Co, is mainly known for his digital art, but also does traditional paintings, sketches and charcoal drawings.
He does both portrait and landscape art, with many being based on flora and fauna. His subjects range from old buildings to modern houses, to vehicles driving along roadways, to vendors selling on the street and birds taking flight.
And unless it is one of his sketches, ink or charcoal drawings, you can expect to see a rainbow of bright hues throughout his pieces.
He was the main artist behind the 2022 Google Doodle featuring the steelpan.
Back then, he had told Newsday that Google contacted him in June 2020 saying they were interested in working with him.
He has worked with several local companies, including Angostura, Hadco, Digicel, Bertie’s Pepper Sauce and Munch Kings Ice Cream.
You can also see his work on billboards, as well as at C3 Centre, East Gates Mall, the Queen’s Park Oval and Phase II Pan Groove panyard, where he has vibrant murals.
Last December, he held his first solo exhibition, Up To Now, which showcased all his work, “up to now,” at the time. He had only had his work featured in group shows before that.
As for Field Trip, he told Newsday, “This will be all brand-new work. A hundred per cent of the stuff that would be in this exhibition would have been finished in this calendar year.”
He said the name speaks to taking visitors on a “field trip of my art, mind and imagination.”
He added that it is also a nod to the nostalgia of things people enjoyed as children.
“Of course, all of the work is really, really inspired by TT. So all of the work is really going to be very reminiscent to people and very familiar to people as well.”
He recalled the amount of work which went into the 2023 exhibition and that he had said, “I don’t know if I’m going to be able to do something like this again for another couple of years.”
But the creative spirit had other plans.
“I started doing work this year. I made a post on Instagram every day just to kind of keep myself fresh in my creativity. And then by about May, I started seeing this kind of new body of work coming out and I was like, ‘You know what? Let me just strike while the iron is hot.’
“The last exhibition was received so well, so I said I would put on a second exhibition one time.”
He said last year, the overall planning was difficult, as he still runs his graphic design agency as well
