NIKKI RENEE ANDERSON
Bio
Nikki Renee Anderson creates sculptures and installations that explore the feminine experience based on her personal history.
Anderson has exhibited extensively including recent exhibitions at the Chicago Cultural Center, Hyde Park Art Center, The Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelly Foundation and Glass Curtain Gallery. Her work has also been exhibited at the 59th and 56th Premio Faenza Competition at the International Museum of Ceramics, Faenza, Italy; The Grounds for Sculpture, Hamilton, NJ; The Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art, Chicago, IL; The Urban Institute for Contemporary Art, Grand Rapids, MI; the 2009 NCECA Biennial at the Arizona State University Museum Ceramics Research Center, Tempe, AZ; The 18th San Angelo National Ceramic Competition at the San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts, San Angelo, TX; The Koehnline Museum of Art, Oakton Community College, Skokie, IL; Visualizing TRANS at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Visual Culture Conference; Chicago Sculpture International Biennale at FLATFILE Galleries; SOFA Chicago 2004 with Dubhe Carreño Gallery; The Hillwood Art Museum, Long Island University, Brookville, NY; Art Chicago 2003, Special Project Space, Zolla/Lieberman Gallery, Chicago, IL; Istanbul Museum of Contemporary Art (online exhibition), Istanbul, Turkey and The Painted Bride Art Center, Philadelphia, PA.
She has been an artist-in-residence at Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, Newcastle, ME, Takt Residency Program, Berlin, Germany, the Icelandic Association of Visual Artists (SÍM), Reykjavík, Iceland, La Macina di San Cresci, Greve, Italy, A.I.R. Vallauris, France and the Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT.
Anderson's work has been reviewed by Helen Harrison in the New York Times, Victor Cassidy in Sculpture Magazine and Ceramics Art and Perception, Lori Waxman and Lauren Viera in the Chicago Tribune. Her work has also been included in American Craft Magazine, Ceramics Monthly, Time Out Chicago, Chicago Artists’ News and the Chicago Sun-Times.
Her awards include an Artist Project Grant in Visual Arts from the Illinois Arts Council, two International Arts Exchange Grants from the Illinois Arts Council, three CAAP grants from the City of Chicago, full funding to the Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, a full fellowship to the Vermont Studio Center; Best Faculty Presentation, Voices, Visions and Visionaries Gender Conference, College of Lake County; and the Maurice Goldberger Graduate Fellowship, Stony Brook University.
She regularly lectures about her work and has presented at the Elmhurst Art Museum in Elmhurst, IL; the International Museum of Ceramic Arts in Faenza, Italy; La Macina di San Cresci Artist Residency in Greve, Italy; the 2007 College Art Association Conference in New York, NY, New School University in New York, NY and Long Island University in Brookville, NY.
She received an MFA from Stony Brook University and a BFA from Drake University. She currently teaches full time in the Art and Design Department at Harper College where she runs the Ceramics program. Anderson lives and works in Chicago.
Artist Statement
My sculptures are fantasy objects that explore cultural stereotypes about beauty, desire, and femininity. The forms have reference to the female body and also other associations to sweets, fruit, and flowers. I both participate in traditional roles and re-imagine them to create new roles. The forms present ideas of temptation and beauty. Many of my sculptures incorporate the shape of a breast or a nipple, which doubles as ice cream or candy and can be equated to the bud. The shape functions to be beautiful, desirable, and immediately recognizable as feminine. They are intended to draw a viewer to get closer to the forms and look as though they could be squeezed or licked.
My sculptures are forms that flow, bubble, grow, explode, drip, and ooze. Some of the pieces reference the form of teardrops or fluid. These pieces explore blood being squeezed from a wound or milk from a breast. Also, they relate to the idea of growth, multiplication, and expansion.
Ultimately, with my work, my goal is to open up the definitions and terms by which we define ourselves and create a fantasy about what is possible. By using familiar associations, I hope to create sculptures that have a universal meaning. While I start with my own memories as a point of inspiration, I am striving to create many openings for viewers.
FLORA DREAMS
This series of work explores the garden as a private setting where the cycles of life are visual and visceral. I have memories from childhood of going outside into the garden by myself early in the morning, and as an adult I understand the garden as a space for growth, renewal, and transformation.
The floral, bodily, and organic forms of these sculptures are small monuments that celebrate and proclaim beauty, sensuality, and power.
Nikki Anderson, Flora Dream 1, 2021,
Ceramic and acrylic, 18x12x12 in., Collection of the artist
