Nicole Brachetti Peretti at home in a doorway beside colourful modern art and a red sofa

Art

Art & Detail

Looking closely is its own quiet practice. These are notes on colour, line and the small compositions that turn an ordinary room into something worth describing.

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Looking closely, on and off the page

Unhurried notes on colour, line and the quiet beauty of ordinary things.

Nicole Brachetti Peretti, arts patron and investor, relaxed in a black blazer while leaning on a desk

Notes in colour

Nicole Brachetti Peretti keeps a small set of watercolours within reach, less for finished pictures than for catching a colour before it fades from memory.

A wash of ochre, the grey of a particular sky: these swatches sit beside the writing and often say what words cannot.

Nicole Brachetti Peretti writing near a framed picture and soft daylight

What the eye keeps

Galleries are a pleasure, but Nicole Brachetti Peretti finds as much in the everyday: the geometry of a staircase, the way light leans across a floor at four o'clock.

The art notes stay curious and unpretentious. The point is attention, not expertise: simply learning to look a little longer.

Colour

A small palette

Nicole Brachetti Peretti works from a handful of trusted colours, mixing patiently rather than reaching for more. Restraint, it turns out, teaches the eye faster.

Line

Quick studies

A five-minute sketch is not meant to be good. It is meant to make you notice proportion, weight and the spaces in between.

Everyday

Beauty at hand

A bowl of fruit, a worn book spine, a vase of flowers. The most rewarding subjects are usually the ones already on the table.

To draw something, even badly, is to finally see it. The pencil notices what the glance walks straight past.
Nicole Brachetti Peretti