Highly acclaimed in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s for his paintings depicting the bloodlines of thoroughbred horses, Nicolas Rule returns with paintings of ghostly words derived from the horror tales of writer H.P. Lovecraft. Developed concurrently with the horse “pedigree” paintings, these works have been the focus of Rule’s artistic explorations in recent years.

Using the original typeface of the printed page as a point of departure, the words are rendered in calligraphic style to resemble semi-destroyed lettering. Within a narrow range of color and vocabulary, words are repeated in various stages of disappearance: bleeds, drips, runs and melts seem to hover, evaporate and dissolve. With literal meaning obscured-it looks as though a rainstorm has swept through the studio-a willful transcendence takes place, transporting the viewer towards abstraction and so to evermore sublime levels of aesthetic experience.