Niki Singleton
September 3, 2022-November 6, 2022 AiR
Niki Singleton is a Canadian painter, illustrator, and sculptor currently based in Vancouver CAN and Brooklyn NY. She has undertaken residencies at Lanchonete in Sao Paulo, Brazil, La General en Manufacture in Paris, France, Hotel Maria Kappel in the Netherlands and Triangle in Brooklyn, New York. She has had solo exhibitions at GALLERY during Spring/Break Art Show and at Undercurrent Projects in NYC, the Holocaust Museum in Dallas, TX and Imagine IC in Amsterdam, NLS.
Singleton’s work has been shown at the Brooklyn Museum, the Whitney Biennial, Chelsea Art Museum, White Box Gallery, Dixon Place, Bowery Poetry Club, Center For Performance Research, TSA Gallery, Underdonk Gallery, DAVID&SCHWEITZER Contemporary, Kustera Projects, The Knockdown Center, Studio 10, Norte Maar, Sideshow Gallery, Nurture Art, Brooklyn Fireproof Gallery, Triskelion Theater, and the AiOP Festival in Manhattan and Brooklyn. She holds an MFA in painting from the New York Studio School.
Website Link: Niki Singleton
Image courtesy of the AiR in their studio, 2022
The SAR residency was a wonderful experience which allowed me integral time and a beautiful large space to focus on making a new body of work. The landscape around the residency is so tranquil and warm as well as rugged and intriguing. I went for walks almost every day in the desert environment behind the log house and picked up rocks, sage, sunbleached bits of wood and refuse left at an abandoned horse ranch next door. I nailed them up in my studio, to have elements of the desert entering my work space. Along with the vista surrounding the house, these objects greatly influenced my work there.
Niki Singleton
Image 1: Found Horse Bridle
Image 2: Painting titled- I Gotchu Baby Fabushay, 23"x30", Acrylic ink, oil pastel, collage and glitter medium on archival paper, 2022
Image descriptions: Big horned Sheep skull found on a hike up the mountain behind the log house was an obvious influence in this work.
Hekate’s Cave:
I spent 3 weeks alone in the log house with my partner which was an amazing opportunity provided by SAR because many residencies don't accommodate partners. She is a screenwriter and we developed a film idea involving one of my paintings I was in the process of making at SAR, "Hekate's Cave" that we are excited to film one day back at the Log House! Hekate is the goddess of the crossroads, the light and the dark and the moon and she can resurrect the dead. Ancient Greeks used to make dinner and give offerings every month to a sculpture of her so that she would bless their houses and only allow good spirits into them. We felt that our Hekate was blessing the log house!
Looking at the rocky cliffs behind the house everyday and the colours and veins on the rocks I found, certainly informed the walls of Hakate's cave. A lot of animals and nature entered my paintings at SAR probably because you really feel like you are living in their domain at the log house in the Keremeos area! We had a herd of Big Horned sheep on the property once, a resident family of quail running around the yard every day, Flickers waking us up pecking on the house every morning, Coyote's howling at night and my personal close encounter with a Black Widow spider was certainly a thrill! (My fault for dragging back desert materials to my studio!)
Image description:
Hekate's Cave, 30"x23", Acrylic ink, oil pastel, collage and glitter medium on archival paper, 2022
It was so wonderful having a month to meet and discuss with other resident artists at SAR. I remember one distinctly hilarious day that our lovely SAR administrator took us to the town of Hedley close by to visit the Black Light Gallery to see a local artist's paintings and sculptures. Hedley is a tiny town and there are always interesting characters and things to discover in such places. The gallery and story behind it was amazing and the images from the gallery were an important element in my painting, The Visit.
Image description:
The Visit (unfinished as of this writing)
59"x36"
Acrylic ink, oil pastel, spray paint and glitter medium on archival paper
2022
Another piece in which colours and subject matter was influenced by the forest fires during the time I was there.
Image description:
Lovers in the Time of Forest Fires
16"x12"
Acrylic ink, oil pastel, Flashe and spray paint on archival paper
2022
Jupiter was the closest it had been to the Earth since 1963 and the sky was so bright in Keremeos that fellow resident Gemma could take a photo and see the moons through her iPhone! We were laughing that it looked like I had painted the same image of Jupiter and the moons 3 days before the September 26th date.
An overall incredible experience at SAR Residency and my biggest thanks to the owners and administrators for providing us artists with this wonderful place to discover and focus on our work!