Nick Veasey 1930’s Pontiac with Gangsters For Sale

Nick Veasey is a British artist born in London in 1962 whose practice occupies a space that no other artist has claimed quite so completely. Working from a custom-built, radiation-proof studio in Kent, England, he uses industrial X-ray equipment to expose the hidden interior of the world around us — cars, fashion, animals, instruments, the human body — producing images of extraordinary detail and haunting beauty that sit equally at home in science institutions and major fine art galleries.

His entry into the medium came by chance in 1996, when he was asked to X-ray a cola can for a television production. On the same day, he X-rayed the shoes he was wearing and showed the results to an art director. The response was immediate and galvanizing, and Veasey has never looked back. What followed was decades of relentless experimentation, collaboration with scientists, and the construction of a working practice that is as technically complex as it is visually compelling.

The work carries real conceptual weight. In a culture consumed by surface — by image, by appearance, by the carefully managed exterior — Veasey does the opposite. He strips it away entirely, revealing the inner architecture of things we think we know and exposing a beauty that exists only when the surface is removed. His X-rays do not create or transform. They reveal what was always there. The range of his subjects is broad and deliberate. Iconic automobiles including Ferrari and Porsche, Balenciaga couture from the Victoria and Albert Museum's permanent fashion collection, military hardware, musical instruments, flowers, and the human skeleton have all passed through his lead-lined studio. Each subject is treated with equal precision and equal curiosity. The result, across all of it, is work that manages to be simultaneously scientific and lyrical, factual and deeply strange.

His prints are produced on Chromaluxe, Diasec, and lenticular formats and issued in strict limited editions. His work has been acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum as part of the British National Collection of Photography and has been exhibited across Europe, North America, and Asia. He is the recipient of awards from the IPA Lucie Awards, AOP, D&AD, Graphis, and Communication Arts, and was nominated for IPA Lucie International Photographer of the Year in 2008. Commercial collaborations have included Nike, Levi's, Adobe, Adidas, the BBC, and Porsche. His most recent work includes the SilXscreens series — silver silkscreen on colour acrylic — marking a significant new direction into colour after a practice long defined by monochromatic imagery.