At night, when her daughter was tucked in and her husband had nodded off, Everlyn Nicodemus would make her way to her studio, turn the lights on and begin to paint in the silence. Like a scene from Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite, she would craft nocturnal art in her house in Åkersberga, a suburb of Stockholm, while the world outside slept. By day she was a mother, Swahili teacher and student; by night a clandestine artist.
Forty years on, we’re meeting in the basement of the Richard Saltoun gallery in London’s Mayfair. As Nicodemus makes her way down the stairs, someone asks how she’s doing. “I’m not dead yet,” she deadpans, before sitting down and suddenly springing to life. The truth is she’s not on the wane at all: she’s a live wire, with stories for days and an opinion on everything.
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