Nikki Vené
Artist Statement
My paintings explore a pedestrian’s view of quiet architectural spaces in and around the
urban periphery. These images reference my perspective as solitary individual, lured out
into the night-time-cityscape to witness its stillness and desolation. My company is my
camera, and I document spaces that are void of human form yet filled with the potential of
their presence. The photographs I take are small glimpses into the intimate space of
another, through the perspective of an outsider.
These photos are referenced through my painting process. On canvas, the ordinary and
unobtrusive spaces found in the original images begin to shift and transform from strict
representation into spaces of abstraction and otherworldliness. My work offers the viewer
agency to witness painted worlds as if they alone exist within them. I am interested in how
this isolated perspective can both empower and exclude the individual; how it can be
witnessed as a position of the realized dreamer or evoke lonely paranoia. My work
privileges the anonymous spectator who feels most alive when alone.