Nicki Shockz
UV Dress
The Dragon Guardians
Little Dragon
Large Dragon
UV Dress
Medium Dragon
Artist Bio
Nicki Shockz was born in San Francisco, California and moved to the Midwest with her family when she was nine. She uses a variety of mediums and processes including painting, screen-printing, and textiles throughout her designs. She uses varying techniques to create abstract imaginary worlds, including paintings, textiles, and objects such as stuffed animals. Nicki received her B.A. in graphic design from St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wisconsin. She has exhibited her work several times in group and juried shows in galleries in Green Bay and Door County Wisconsin.
Artist Statement
My fascination with fantasy has led me to create abstract imaginary worlds of my own. Using different materials and processes, I create colorful layered paintings and objects. The abstract shapes come from digital programs that have been manipulated through editing and processes such as screen printing, stenciling, and sewing. The shapes inspired by animals, movement, and painterly strokes are then layered and repeated on various fabrics and surfaces. This allows a multitude of possibilities for the work to transform. With color and abstraction, I create settings for viewers to experience and interact with ultraviolet lighting, installation, and stuffed objects.
The abstracted shapes reference creatures, land, movement, and energy. Emphasized by the vibrating colors, these forms are stenciled, and screen printed repetitively creating optimistic dystopian settings that allow the viewer to become entranced and overwhelmed by the visual stimulation. Through the colors, shapes, and dense layering create a disorienting camouflage that doesn’t reflect the natural world but instead one that stands out in an everyday setting.
Play and experimentation guide my process. The inclusion of stuffed animals is intended to bring in the idea of child-like imaginations. These stuffed animals gain a life and distinctive personality through the colors and layering. I give these commercial patterns a gaudy and obnoxious makeover. Being cute, weird, and silly they take the form of dragons and challenge the ideas of traditional paintings by looking at their limits and possibilities. Becoming the guardians and extensions of these pieces, the dragons become a catalyst for creative narratives, and represent conflicting symbols that may oppose one another.