Nicolas Party: Copper & Dust at The Holburne Museum review

An unmissable exhibition of Swiss artist Nicolas Party runs at the Holburne Museum in Bath until 31 August 2025. Titled Copper and Rust, this exhibition sees Party engage in active dialogue with the museum’s historic collection to create new work, and brings together key pieces from the past five years of the artist’s practice.

Nicolas Party. Installation view of Nicolas Party: Copper and Dust at the Holburne Museum 2025. Photo: Jo Hounsome Photography. 

In the museum’s Picture Gallery is a new mural hand-painted directly onto the walls using the artist’s signature pastel technique. The mural recreates A Brawl Between Peasants by Benjamin Gerritsz, an oil painting from c.1612-1652 which hangs in the Holburne’s permanent collection. Party became fascinated by this artwork, which depicts a peasant with blood streaming from his ear kneeling over another man while a woman and child attempt to restrain him, during a period of extended research at the museum. In spite of its small size, Gerritsz’s painting packs a punch due to its grotesque, violent nature and unusual monochromatic rendering. Now blown up to monumental scale by Party, the intricacies of the original work can be examined in greater detail and its subject considered in juxtaposition with Party’s own surreal compositions. 

Party has been exploring the possibilities of mural work since a young age, becoming involved with graffiti art as early as 12 years old. The introduction of pastel, however, is a more recent innovation which has enabled the artist to swiftly and impactfully stage major interventions in museum and gallery spaces. At the centre of his mural in the Picture Gallery, Party has thoughtfully positioned a new painting of his own which responds directly to the themes and impressions of Gerritsz’s work. This deep engagement with history and particularly C17th-C18th painting traditions is a crucial inspiration driving Party’s practice, and one which strikes a unique chord with his contemporary aesthetic - marked by bright colours and carefully stylised figures. This appreciation for old and new gives Party’s work a simultaneously traditional and futuristic feel, and this exhibition at the Holburne enables each piece to take on new resonances through forming unexpected connections with the museum’s history collection. The first public art gallery in the city of Bath, the museum's Grade I listed building houses renowned works by artists such as Gainsborough, Guardi and Stubbs, and boasts the country’s only remaining eighteenth-century pleasure gardens. The surrounding nature further ties back to Party’s own practice, which often foregrounds striking landscapes inspired by his upbringing in Switzerland, and infuses still life scenes with his hyper-contemporary aesthetic.

Installation view of Nicolas Party: Copper and Dust at the Holburne Museum 2025. Photo: Jo Hounsome Photography. 

Visitors are able to explore Party’s engagement with nature and natural subjects, ranging from mountains to fruit to dinosaurs, across two additional exhibition rooms containing 18 recent artworks (the earliest dating to 2021). Each work is miniature in size, forming a striking contrast with the mural, and painted directly onto a copper sheet. Party became drawn to this technique while researching Flemish painting, and was intrigued by the possibilities and consequences of using copper. Notably, the metal does not fluctuate in the same way as materials such as wood, and therefore leads to minimal cracking in the oil paint. These paintings have a distinctive sheen and are rendered in Party’s high-contrast, high-colour style which is a testament to the artist’s diverse influences and early training in digital mediums, particularly with 3D animation and graphic design. 

Installation view of Nicolas Party: Copper and Dust at the Holburne Museum 2025. Photo: Jo Hounsome Photography. 

This exhibition is a unique opportunity to delve into the Swiss artist’s creative mind and experience a dialogue between centuries of painting. The Holburne Museum is a marvellous setting for this show, particularly considering Party’s major mural installation amongst the permanent collection in one of the museum’s most important rooms. As Party goes from strength to strength with his practice and internationally celebrated career, it is also an opportunity to explore current and cutting edge work by one of the contemporary greats.

Date: 12 May – 31 August 2025. Location: The Holburne Museum, Great Pulteney Street, Bath, BA2 4DB Price: from £12.50. Concessions available. Book now.

Review by Sofia Carreira-Wham