View Adoration of the Sea

Adoration of the Sea is the central painting from Williams' 1999 exhibition. The series of works examine the human compulsion to canonize certain events. The painting can viewed at Bournemouth's Central Library, www.bournemouth.gov.uk/Residents/Libraries/Info/Bournemouth/

The work depicts a scene of women walking in procession, following pallbearers conveying offerings to the sea. This painting was accompanied by a group of related supporting works that record events and preparations leading up to the procession such as costume makers, goldsmiths, and individual offerings. Williams has stated that 'Obby 'Oss celebrations in Padstow Cornwall was a major influence on this particular work.

"How many of the (Turner Prize) judges have seen the old-fashioned pictorial fantasies of Nicholas Williams in his Newquay studio, a converted lifeboat station? - 200 square feet of his Adoration of the Sea is not cutting edge but has about it, as does all his work, the engaging madness of a driven man, an eccentricity of great appeal, the rashness of a painter who must paint and never mind the near impossibility of patronage"

Brian Sewell, London Evening Standard, 1st June, 2001.