Nikki Jean Beck

Nikki Jean Beck
Bunbury, Western Australia, Australia

STATEMENT

My current works are predominantly drawing, ink and collage based. I source my collage materials from second-hand/vintage books, magazines, and assorted paper-based ephemera; I have a particular penchant for French Vogue magazines which are filled with imagery that evokes the sensual and moody tones of fashion photography. An aesthete at heart, I seek to create images inspired by my love of nature, music, fashion, poetry, literature, the occult, and esoterica.

I use a gestural abstraction approach in my collage art process, dripping and splashing inks and water, scribbling and scratching with pencils and fine point pens that bleed when wet. This process is purely emotive and intuitive, reflective of the inner state. The work then shifts, becoming more controlled and image oriented, requiring attention to detail, precision cutting, and endless arranging until the image “clicks”. I know the work is complete when I feel a strange sense of numinous energy emanating from the image. I view my completed artworks as fragments of unconscious material, projected out into the world; they exist both as entities unto themselves, and as images enriched with new meaning, new threads to unravel and reintegrate.

BIO

Nikki Jean Beck is a mixed-media artist who lives by the sea in South-Western Australia.

Her current body of work embraces the collage medium; the images reflect a moody surrealism, imbued with touches of fashion, poetry, and nature, all infused with the background tones of a post-punk soundtrack.

Working across mixed modalities; textile/embroidery, water-colour, ink, graphite, and collage art, her connection with these analogue methods is largely inspired by a sense of anemoia relating to the post-modernist movements of the 20th century.

Nikki strongly aligns with the perspectives of Jungian Analytical Psychology, she attends deeply to the world of dreams, imagination, and nature, utilising Jungian oriented arts practices that explore the symbolic imagery of the unconscious.

Nikki has studied visual arts, interior design, and social work. She currently works as a mental health counsellor with children and families and is completing post-graduate studies in creative arts therapies. She regularly exhibits in group exhibitions and her work has appeared in collage publications. Her work can be found in private collections, both locally (Australia), and internationally (USA and United Kingdom).

ARTIST CONTACT

[click to email]
neuvrotique.com

IMAGES