Nicholas Jones was born in Bristol in 1965. He studied Fine Art at Bristol Polytechnic where his degree show paintings revealed a deep appreciation of Samuel Palmer and a concern for luminosity. For three years he then worked almost exclusively in the medium of stained glass. In 1990 he returned to painting and in the space of twelve months began to discover his own artistic identity, working with a sudden confidence, intensity and independence. It was at this time that he first met Andras Kalman and his paintings have featured frequently in the Crane Kalman Gallery ever since. Crane Kalman have mounted nine solo exhibitions of his work since 2000.

Landscape, abstraction, colour and light have long been the dominant themes of Nick’s painting. Taking inspiration from the countryside around his Somerset home, from visits to the Lake District and Scotland and dreams of places further afield, he has sought to evoke the world of nature, of hills, mountains, water, skies, trees, and above all, light. Over time these ‘abstracted landscapes’ slowly became more simplified – increasingly pure celebrations of colour and light. Between 2014 and 2017 Nick made a number of visits to Finnish Lapland culminating in over sixty paintings attempting to evoke the other-worldly beauty of the Aurora Borealis.

More recently Nick has been working on a series of Arctic paintings. He is fascinated by how in the Arctic such a rich and varied beauty can be created from the simplest of elements: ice, rock, water and light. His appointment in 2018 as the Friends of the Scott Polar Research Institute’s Arctic Artist in Residence provided him with a wonderful opportunity to immerse himself in the light and landscape of the region and was the catalyst for a significant new body of work.

In 2022 the Royal Geographical Society presented Nick with the Cherry Kearton Medal and Award for his polar paintings. Recent recipients include iconic photographer Steve McCurry, artists Tacita Dean and Andy Goldsworthy, and going further back BBC Planet Earth producer Alistair Fothergill and Sir David Attenborough.

Nicholas Jones is married to Jane Blazeby, a professor of surgery in Bristol. They have three adult children.