Chris Niemi

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Chris Niemi
works on paper
Reception Friday March 27 from 7-10pm
at Outpost for Contemporary Art




Artist's Statement:
In this work I began with paper, paint, brush. I imagined it was the first time I encountered these tools. As an artist this allowed me to investigate my personal approach to artmaking. This led to questions like: at what point does a mark contain meaning? and what can I say with a mark? I added each color in a free floating layer, playing with its connotations. The forms start to arise out of this interplay. As I work on a piece, my interest is to create an emotional portrait rather than an image of objects.

I like to think the first mark is accidental. In a way how can the first one be anything else? Sometimes what is made by chance seems much more intended, maybe it is because you must choose to act randomly. Doing this series for me is almost a form of lucid dreaming. Time ceases to be linear. There is no linked narrative; the beginning, middle, and end of the ‘story’ appear to be happening at one time. Like a vague awareness of a genetic memory that allows you to participate in all memories.

My intention is that the viewer is pulled into an almost social, shifting, relationship with the work as she moves closer, possibly into a more intimate relationship than she wanted to be.

I see this series as raising questions about our relationship to an organic, mutable, messy physical existence and how do we make sense of a necessarily fragmented perception of the world?

Bio:
Chris Niemi was born in St. Paul, Minnesota and received her BFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD) majoring in painting and sculpture. She currently lives and works in Los Angeles, California. This new series of works on paper visualizes a space and time where the beginning, middle, and end of the ‘story’ are happening simultaneously and raises questions about our relationship to an organic, mutable, messy physical existence.