SCROLL ON
nick cowan

july 2025

SCROLL ON is an exhibition by Brockley-based artist Nick Cowan capturing moments of everyday weakness at the hands of our ubiquitous smartphones, not to expose flaws, but rather to reveal something essential about what it is to be human. Cowan explains:

“The paradox we find ourselves in now is that we are constantly connected while feeling increasingly disconnected. The figures in Scroll On are frozen captives of their devices, their bodies hollow shells that mimic our own absent-mindedness as we spend countless hours scrolling slop.

I’ve harboured an interest in making people out of whatever materials I could get my hands on ever since my first celebrated exhibition — a primary school inquiry into ancient Egyptian mummies. Since then, I’ve found myself drawn to the simplified forms of modernist sculpture that are concerned less with representation than with volume and essence: traditional coil and hand-building methods help me avoid becoming too concerned with representation, lending the figures their comic and bulbous shape. I aim to depict these figures in unguarded, classical poses that give an ancient and monumental feel to transient and absurd moments.

I hope these pieces provoke a wry recognition in viewers and even, a reflection of their own relationship to technology. Mind you, when confronted with something upsetting or uncomfortable like our own shortcomings, what else is there to do but to just scroll on?”

Nick Cowan is a sculptor who has been making things on and off for the last 10 years. He first stumbled upon leafy Brockley when studying at the local art haunt, Goldsmiths college. When not making, Nick can be found writing the words on buttons in apps. He spends a lot of time looking at his phone.