Nicholas Zirk

Nicholas Zirk, born and raised in Vancouver, currently lives and works in Montreal. His still life paintings use the vanitas genre to explore symbolism and meaning-making through a wry postmodern perspective. Zirk’s works have a playfulness and humour which belies the complexity of his subject matter. Zirk is currently completing his MFA at Concordia University, having earned his BFA from OCAD University in Toronto. Zirk has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver, as well as internationally in New York City, and Los Angeles. Periodically Zirk also organizes exhibitions of other artists' works, having curated shows in Vancouver and Toronto.

Nicholas Zirk’s still life painting practice explores meaning-making and our perceptions of reality through the codified genre of the vanitas. Traditional vanitas paintings used symbolic objects to tell moral tales about the transience of life and the folly of material pursuits. These symbols function in a one-to-one way, where an object relates directly to a specific story, which is read by the viewer. Zirk, on the other hand takes a postmodern approach: his object-symbols reference symbolism itself, suggesting a multiplicity of interpretations which challenge our inherent modes of meaning making. His recent floral still lifes extend this meta-symbolism to flowers and gardens, using ornamentation, repetition, and composition to examine how we construct meaning in our everyday experience.

Recent Exhibitions

Selected Artworks