I first discovered Nick’s art after he designed a few album covers of some artists I enjoyed a few years back. For me, his pieces elicit feelings of playfulness, longing, and most importantly humanity. I immediately gravitated towards his style which he describes ever so much better than I could ever in his artist statement: 

“Nick Dahlen creates empathetically with his environment. While his influences (Kandinsky, Picasso, Andra Matin, Le Corbusier, Bill Evans, Chick Corea) live on in his bold mark-making and intelligent spontaneity, he is able to produce striking originality in his pieces with the scenes he chooses to create and the lines he uses to compose them. Each piece seems to be a structured recollection of a place or idea while still achieving a malleable, dream-like quality for the viewer. Nick’s work evokes a nostalgia for the daily. Through this, he hopes to help others in their own ability to translate complexities into a simple, elegant structure in any moment; To witness the beauty of how we occupy space, always existing perfectly in contrast to something else.”