Nikki Gage

2009-03-13T18:51:00.000-07:00

I've almost finished working on this painting of jocelyn wildenstein. I had a huge piece of polystyrene board that came from packaging (new fridge!) and I really wanted to paint on it as part of my work. So to relate a person to this material I typed the words 'plastic woman' into google and this lady came up almost everywhere. She is known as the 'cat woman'...mainly because she looks like a cat or rather a lion in this image. Having a huge amount of plastic surgery in her life has resulted in her face looking as it does, and this idea of being the most plastic woman relates fantastically to the plastic board in which I have painted her on..very unnatural and artificial.

2009-03-13T18:37:00.001-07:00

I like the idea of experimenting with different material and relating that material to a person like I have done below. I want to carry this idea on but instead of using people I know (who people do not etc) I want to use famous -well known people so that the viewer can relate to them and get a better understanding of why they are re the lated tomaterial.

2009-03-13T18:23:00.000-07:00

I painted Billy Connolly onto a tartan piece of fabric. The tartan reminds me of Scottish people every time I see it so I incorporated this idea with a well known Scotsman...Billy Connolly. I didn't want to follow the eerie, uncomfortable vibe with this piece because the guy is a comedian and it wouldn't have suited who he is and how he is well known.

2009-03-13T11:34:00.000-07:00

My project is based on portraiture and people mainly. I've looked into artist such as Francis Bacon, Arnulf Rainer, Jenny Saville, Antony Micallef, there's quite a list. Anyway I started to look at and paint images of faces that appear somewhat eerie, unsightly in some ways.

These types of images and faces draw me in because they create a sort of uncomfortable vibe when you look at them and that is what I wanted to delve more into.
It is not only the atmosphere the images (faces) create but, also the perspective and angles in which we look at them, that have intrigued me. Instead of the conventional head on portraiture we tend to see, I wanted to experiment with angles and positions that differ to these, yet still keeping an uncomfortable and eerie vibe about them.

Here I started looking more into material that I was working on. I wanted to move out of the canvas, sketchbook habits I gained and try to work on different textures and types of material.

With the material I use, I want it to have a connection of some sort with the person/people portrayed on it. For example on the image above I painted a friend of mine onto a pizza tray because he is known for loving his pizza's. The distortion of the face was influenced by Francis Bacon's work, which to me adds a weird, madness to the painting and relates again to the crazy nature of this guy.

2009-03-13T11:24:00.000-07:00

Finally going to write on my blog! I'm not a great fan of blogging but I do think it's a good way to just post what your up to and check out what people are too....I'm not a big talker about my work as I struggle trying to write what it is about and why I did it -sometimes I don't really know myself I just experiment and go with the flow!...anyway I'll post some of my work up soon.