Box Gallery Artists Featured in American Art Collector Magazine

 Suzanne Scherer and Pavel Ouporov often painted their young son, Nicolas, in their exquisite egg tempera paintings on poplar icon panels. They began Nicolai with Peacocks in 2004 when Nicolas was 2 years old and finished it several years later. Nicolas is now an undergraduate at Columbia University “interested in mathematics, emerging tech, entrepreneurship, and the arts,” he says. “I have a long history in the performing arts and visual arts, working under institutions such as the Boston Ballet and YoungArts Foundation. I believe that aspects of the arts are present in all fields and I hope to discover these intersections, pushing towards a more authentic, accessible world.” The role of the model in figurative painting is often overlooked. In an artist statement, Nicolas reflected on being a model and a dancer, always being in front of the camera as an “object.” “I wanted so badly to take control of how my image was depicted, to grasp it from the hands of my parents and teachers. I wanted to be my own personality and reflect it somehow. This desire led me to the artform of photography.” In photographic triptychs for a recent exhibition at the Box Gallery in West Palm Beach, Florida, he explored “improvisational pose as a method for capturing an ‘alternative’ portrait of a human being.” In the central image, dance movement was translated into mark-making when he covered his feet in pigment and executed dance moves on canvas.