Nikki De Marco’s landscapes fuse her inner and outer worlds. Her interest in the construction of her self-identity results in vistas which teeter between figuration and abstraction. Memories are documented through a visual language informed through the shapes, patterns, and colours experienced daily in nature. Further tensions materialise through a dual process of conscious and subconscious approaches, often resulting in a blend of organic and geometric shapes which collide and connect on the picture surace.
Nikki’s new work underlines how opposites, conflicts and contradictions coexist in her world. A vivid colour palette is intuitively applied, responding to the changing of seasons and inner landscape. The pull between knowing and not knowing is seen through the layers of paint and remanifestation of ideas as moments of change are reflected in the final veneers of paint. Questions of self-identity and man’s relationshp with nature are emotionally told through a complex language often emerging from moments of chaos or destruction.
Nikki describes her paintings as ‘inner landscapes’ which are created through a quest for self-knowledge and a desire to find a more authentic self. The result is a blend of the tangible and non-tangible, a pictorial language of hidden codes where hints of familiar references are lost and found, referencing her attempts to navigate internal tensions. The resulting landscapes are divorced from place, displaying both personal and universal experiences of fleeting moments that arise and disappear.