Ted Lawson, Christina Nicodema: The Fall of The Roman Empire

Monkeys cling to the side of an ornate cake shaped like a Roman building, feasting on rotting fruits as they press into the thick white icing. Alongside these scenes of indulgence and wreckage by Christina Nicodema, abstract forms jostle for space and complex labyrinthine structures seduce and scatter the gaze in Ted Lawson’s sculptural paintings. The Fall of the Roman Empire, the artists’ first duo exhibition at Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, Tower Bridge, presents a timely reflection on the rise and fall of civilisations.

 

Nicodema’s lush, detailed paintings delve into the complexities of the food chain, consumerism and truth in the modern world. She begins by mining the internet for imagery, drawing from its ever-evolving cultural landscape to create digital collages that she then transforms into richly layered paintings with the texture and glow of Dutch still lifes, capturing a fine balance between beauty and decay. Take, for instance, Romulus Augustulus, playfully named after the last of the Western Roman Emperors. From a distance, the dazzling colours of the flowers, fruits and animals appear almost to create an image of a flourishing, wild landscape, but as we step closer into the canvas, it becomes clear this is in fact the aftermath of some kind of human celebration, which has been raided by nature. What looks at first like some kind of plant reveals itself to be a three-tier sponge cake, raised on a gilded base on top of a marble table, over which golden fabric has been draped. There is only one slice missing from the cake, as if the party had been abruptly disturbed and abandoned. The patches of blue mould indicate passage of time, but also the idea of corruption or immorality. We might interpret the animals here, as in Nicodema’s other  paintings, as the outsiders or invaders, but the dark forest backdrop hints at a different world order. As throughout Nicodema’s works, the narrative is left intentionally ambiguous, but the domination of nature over an artificial human environment feels particularly pointed at a time when human greed continues to wreak havoc over the natural world.

 

The references to the Roman Empire in both Nicodema and Lawson’s work are slightly tongue-in-cheek, riffing off the popularity of viral trend content relating to this part of history, particularly among men, for whom historian Dame Mary Beard has suggested it offers ‘a safe space for being macho in’ (adding an especially humorous edge to the recurring motif of monkeys in Nicodema’s paintings). But as the artists’ point out, it is also the period of history which has had the most profound effect on shaping global culture.

 

Following this train of thought, Lawson has looked to the resonance of Roman and Greek myths. Crossing the Alps (on Elephants) is a reference to the story of Hannibal marching his troops through the mountains to attack the Romans — a crossing that has been reimagined throughout art history and across many different mediums. Lawson’s interpretation reduces the epic tale to a series of fragmented, broken and fraying forms. While the composition is made of aluminum it appears fragile, as if it is has been cut from paper. Meanwhile, the precise, complex compositions of Edge of the known world and Icarus looking down from above, drawn first on the computer and then CNC milled in MDF and painted with industrial lacquer, appear like maps, mazes or source code, with areas of colour seeming to delineate masses of land, pathways, weather patterns, warning systems. Inspired by the myth of Icarus flying too close to the sun, these labyrinthine works reflect not only on the ways in which land and nations are divided but also on how language and stories become embedded into and are transformed by the collective consciousness. In a similar way to Nicodema’s paintings, what Lawson’s works capture is less a specific narrative or action itself than evolution through time and remnants of stories and feelings — of superhuman power and a life-shattering downfall — that linger in countless reverberations, myth becoming reality, history repeating itself.

 

Together, Nicodema and Lawson create a dialogue that bridges material and conceptual exploration, examining how history, myth, and human action resonate across generations. Their work prompts us to reconsider the systems we build, the power dynamics that shape them, and the lasting legacies we leave behind — asking us to reflect on whether we are doomed to repeat the cycles of the past.