Riff & Reprise

Nicholas Hanisch is a multidisciplinary visual artist based in Adelaide. This commemorative artwork was commissioned to respond to the 50-year history of Adelaide Festival Centre and specifically Adelaide Guitar Festival, epitomising Adelaide as Australia’s UNESCO City of Music.

In Hanisch’s art practice he is particularly interested in the blurring of time. He employs the Absurdist approach often using humour, the process of failure and happenstance as central to his experimental arts practice. His sculptures and paintings formally present contemporary and art historical references, while continually questioning creation narratives.

Hanisch attended New York Studio School, participated in art residencies across India, and exhibited extensively in Berlin, Adelaide and interstate. In 2020, he graduated with First Class Honours as a scholarship recipient at Adelaide Central School of Art.

As the artist stated:

‘This oil painting playfully constructs a vision of an otherworldly apocalyptic guitar player explosion. I wanted to represent the myriad of possible guitar players and all the different personalities and archetypes. It references Adelaide Festival Centre's exciting existence as a space of inspiration, performance and personality. Inspired by classical art history paintings depicting masses of intersecting figures, my painting is a reimagining of the far past and present through a blurred lens.’