Nicole Awai Work | Artist Statement & CV | Return to Artist List
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Artist Statement
Implication, inference and materiality, in many ways the American experience like that of the Caribbean, is an island experience consisting of enclaves of diverse, divergent and disparate cultures. As an artist, mine is a perceptual endeavor.
I respond to peoples’ interaction with me as an Anglophone Caribbean body living an American life. There is a constant and inherent state of duality in this existence. Not a state of confusion or a crisis of identity but an acknowledgement, acceptance and an owning of simultaneous multiple realities. I have an impulse to ‘mirror’ and play with visual languages in a way that forestalls a quick reading and suspends the viewer’s perception, a state of flux. The work is ‘drawn’ in a way that moves between two and three dimensions – everything starts in drawing, a taking apart to put back together, everything eventually falls back in ‘line’.
Specimens from Local Ephemera is a drawing series that started as a mix of the languages of blue prints and schematic drawings of hardware devices and accessories as well as a map legend of nail polish samples called the Sensation Code with the insertion of inhabitants (the Specimens) who were an amalgam of gifted and acquired cultural artifacts here in the United States. Some of these artifacts include an antebellum topsy-turvy doll, decorative rum bottles and Black Love incense.
The names of the nail polish colors in the Sensation Code direct, misdirect and re-direct a narrative reading e.g., I’m Not A Tourist by Prevail, I Want to be An A-Lone Star and Jade is the New Black by O.P.I, All the White Stuff by Sally Hansen and Go Go Green by Maybelline. There is a pervasive motif that is often physically indicated or psychologically implied - the OOZE. This viscous material is simultaneously a site of destruction and re-generation.
The drawings have now progressively superseded their ‘format’. The collaged, fragmented imagery, the slivers or glimpse spaces have become activated and assertive. They are proprioceptive, literally pushing or pulling the drawings. The nail polish like the Ooze is settling on top.
Implication, inference and materiality, in many ways the American experience like that of the Caribbean, is an island experience consisting of enclaves of diverse, divergent and disparate cultures. As an artist, mine is a perceptual endeavor.
I respond to peoples’ interaction with me as an Anglophone Caribbean body living an American life. There is a constant and inherent state of duality in this existence. Not a state of confusion or a crisis of identity but an acknowledgement, acceptance and an owning of simultaneous multiple realities. I have an impulse to ‘mirror’ and play with visual languages in a way that forestalls a quick reading and suspends the viewer’s perception, a state of flux. The work is ‘drawn’ in a way that moves between two and three dimensions – everything starts in drawing, a taking apart to put back together, everything eventually falls back in ‘line’.
Specimens from Local Ephemera is a drawing series that started as a mix of the languages of blue prints and schematic drawings of hardware devices and accessories as well as a map legend of nail polish samples called the Sensation Code with the insertion of inhabitants (the Specimens) who were an amalgam of gifted and acquired cultural artifacts here in the United States. Some of these artifacts include an antebellum topsy-turvy doll, decorative rum bottles and Black Love incense.
The names of the nail polish colors in the Sensation Code direct, misdirect and re-direct a narrative reading e.g., I’m Not A Tourist by Prevail, I Want to be An A-Lone Star and Jade is the New Black by O.P.I, All the White Stuff by Sally Hansen and Go Go Green by Maybelline. There is a pervasive motif that is often physically indicated or psychologically implied - the OOZE. This viscous material is simultaneously a site of destruction and re-generation.
The drawings have now progressively superseded their ‘format’. The collaged, fragmented imagery, the slivers or glimpse spaces have become activated and assertive. They are proprioceptive, literally pushing or pulling the drawings. The nail polish like the Ooze is settling on top.
CV
Born: Port-of-Spain, Trinidad
EDUCATION
Master of Fine Arts, Multi-media Art, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL. (1996)
Bachelor of Arts, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL. (1991)
RESIDENCIES
Smack Mellon Artist Studio Program, Brooklyn NY (2010-2011).
Artist-in-Residence, John Michael Kohler, Arts Center, Sheboygan, WI (Summer 2008).
Caribbean Contemporary Arts, International Artist in Residence, Trinidad,
(Summer 2007).
Art Omi International Artist’s Colony, Hudson / New York, NY. (2004)
Artist-in-Residence, Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning, Queens, NY. (2004)
Big River 2 International Artists’ Workshop, Caribbean Contemporary Arts, Port-of-Spain, Trinidad (2001).
Artist-in-Residence, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY. (1999-2000)
Artist-in-Residence, Hunter College, Art Department, New York, NY. (2000)
Artist-in-Residence, Art Center South Florida, Miami Beach, FL. (1998)
Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, Maine / New York, NY. (1997)
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2011
Almost Undone, The Vilcek Foundation, New York, NY.
2008
Backwards and Forwards, Akus Gallery, Eastern Connecticut State University, Willimantic, CT.
2005
Local Ephemera, Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning, Queens, NY.
SECECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2011
Wrestling with the Image, OAS Art Museum of the Americas, Washington DC.
Global Caribbean, Museum of Contemporary Art, Puerto Rico.
2010
Global Caraibes, Musee International des Arts Modestes (MIAM), Sete, France.
Sex Symbols, Pool Art Fair, Gershwin Hotel, New York, NY
2009
Global Caribbean, Satellites at Art Basel, Little Haiti Cultural Complex, Miami.
Borders, Amelie A. Wallace Gallery, SUNY College at Old Westbury, NY.
2008
2008 Busan Biennale, Busan Museum of Modern Art, Busan, Korea
2007
Infinite Island: Contemporary Caribbean Art, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY.
Pilot 3, Monastery St Damien/St Cosimo, La Giudecca, Venice, Italy.
TRANS, Queens Library Gallery, Queens, NY.
2006
Tropicalism: Subversions of Paradise, Jersey City Museum, Jersey City, NJ.
“D’Asie d’Afrique”, Artist Commune, Kowloon, Hong Kong
Chimaera, Tenri Cultural Institute of New York, New York, NY
2005
Pilot: 2 International Art Forum, London, UK.
2004
Open House: Working in Brooklyn, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY.
2003
Biennial of Ceramics in Contemporary Art, Albisola, Italy.
Hope Box Tour, Morrocco, Eritrea, Egypt Mexico, Brazil, Kosova, South Africa.
After Matisse/ Picasso, PS1 / MOMA, Long Island City, NY.
637 Running Feet: Black on White Wall Drawings by 14 Artists, Queens Museum of Art, Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Queens, NY.
2002
Divergence, Rush Arts, New York, NY.
Model Citizens: Nicole Awai, Lennon Jon Baptiste, Tony Gray, Wangechi Mutu, Roger Smith Gallery, New York, NY.
2001
Panyard, Nicole Awai and Terry Boddie, Five Myles, Brooklyn, NY.
Between Lines, (traveling exhibition) Centro Cultural Cariforo, Palacio de Bellas Artes, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
Hope Box Peep-Show 2001, Queensland College of Art Gallery, Griffith University, Queensland, Australia.
Big River 2 International Artists Workshop Exhibition, Caribbean Contemporary Arts, Trinidad, West Indies.
New New York, Manuel Acevedo, Nicole Awai, Adam Baer , Ernest Jolicoeur, Akus Gallery, Eastern Connecticut State University, Willimantic, CT.
studio-visit.com - the show, 31 Grand, Brooklyn, NY.
2000
Greater New York: New Art in New York Now, PS1 / MOMA, Long Island City, NY.
From the Studio: Artists-in-Residence 1999-2000, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY.
Good Art is the Best Business: 20 Years of Artists In The Market Place, The Bronx Museum of Art, Bronx, NY
Frere, The New York Independent Art Fair, Hotel Chelsea Inn, New York, NY.
Weather Report, International Travelling Exhibition, Weather Report Foundation, Den Haag, The Netherlands.
Ziggy and the Black Dinosaurs and Other Folktales, Longwood Arts Center, Bronx, NY.
The Pocket Project, Entitled and the Rainbow Artists, Skylight Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
LECTURES AND INTERVIEWS
Bad at Sports, Episode 234: NADA 4 Awai / Blass pod cast (http://badatsports.com/)
Smack Mellon Studio Artists 2010
http://smackmellon.org/index.php/contact/current_studio_artist/
Panelist, Global Caribbean (s): Interrogating the Politics of Location in Caribbean Literature and Culture
Visiting Artist, Yale School of Art, Department of Painting, Printmaking and Sculpture (12/8/07).
Conversation from ‘Here’, panel discussion, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
(10/8/07).
Whitney Museum of American Art, Initial Public Offering: New Artists, New Curators, Nicole Awai and Rocio Aranda-Alvarado. (3/23/05)
Local Ephemera, Nicole Awai in Discussion with Edwin Ramoran and Rosamond King, Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning , Queens, NY (1/28/2005)
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Art Etc, >copy>paste>undo paste: Locating Caribbean Women Artists in the Diaspora,
By Joscelyn Gardner, Volume 2, Number 1
Le Monde, Sete Devoile la Creation De Jeunes Artistes Des Caraibes by Phillippe Dagen, August 20, 2010
Skowhegan Newsletter 2010, Alumni Remember Skowhegan, pg 13
Caribbean Art World Magazine, Global Caribbean Comes To Little Haiti: Inter, national Debates on Caribbean Art, by Marcel Wah and Marina Vatav
Small Axe: A Journal of Caribbean Criticism # 24, Email from ‘HERE’ by Nicole Awai, Fall/Winter 2007.
The Caribbean Review of Books, “An Island Is A World”, by Nicholas Laughlin, no.14, November 2007.
AM New York, Weekend, August 31-September 3, 2007.
Art Actuel, “L’Art Actuel Des Caraibes”, September/October 2007, #52.
New York Times, Art Review, From Young Storytellers, A Playful Tone: Contemporary Art Powerhouse’s Emerging Artists Show Promise, by Benjamin Genocchio, August 26, 2007.
New York Times, Art Review, Coloring a Tropical Paradise, by Benjamin Genocchio, December 3, 2006.
The International Review of African American Art, volume 20 no.2,
“Inveterate Outsider”, African American Women Artists Get Their Due (and Pay Them) by Margaret Vendryes.
Smallaxe.net, Sxspace, “Nicole Awai”, March 2005.
Flavorpill.net, Discussion: Art, Initial Public Offerings(I.P.O.):
by Paul Laster (3/22-3/2805).
Review: Literature and Art of the Americas 68, Volume 37, number1, ”The World of In-Between: An Interview with Nicole Awai”, Rocio Aranda-Alvarado, May 2004.
Gallery & Studio, New York Notebook, “Open House: A Museum grows in Brooklyn”, vol. 6 no. 5 June/July/August 2004.
New York Times, Art Guide, “Open House: Working in Brooklyn (w/repro), by Holland Cotter, April 30, 2004.
BOMB, Artists on Artists: Nicole Awai by Christopher Cozier, Winter 2003/2004.
Exibart.onpaper, eventi d’arte in Italia, Seconde Biennale di Ceramica d’ Arte Contemporanea, pg. 43, Ottobre 2003.
Urbanism: A Dialogue with Style in the City, by Rocio Aranda-Alvarado, April 2003, Caribbean Visual Culture Conference, Juan Carlos Center, New York University, NY.
NY Arts, "Hot Shows from the Edge: Summer in the City", by Carl E. Hazlewood, September 2002.
New York Times, Art Guide, "Model Citizens", by Ken Johnson, July 5, 2002.
Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art, Review "Culture and Memory, #13/14 spring/summer 2001.
New American Paintings, Sixth Open Studios Northeastern Competition, Volume # 32, March 2001.
New York Times, Art Review, "Picking Out Distinctive Voices in a Pluralistic Chorus", by Holland Cotter, August 18, 2000.
Time Out New York, “From the Studio: Artists-In-Residence 2000”, issue no. 254, August 3-10,2000.
Good Morning New York, television interview Fox Ch. 5 WNYW, August 10,2000.
studio-visit.com, "Nicole Awai", feature, interview with Heather Stephens, June 2000.
New York Times, Art Review, Good Art is the Best Business, Bronx Museum of Art, by Holland Cotter, May 12, 2000.
Harper's Bazaar, "United Artists", by Catherine Hong, May 2000.
AWARDS
Puffin Foundation Grant, Puffin Foundation LTD, Teaneck, NJ. (1998)
Payson Fellowship, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, Maine / New York, NY (1997).
Emerging Artist Grant, Arts Council of Hillsborough County, Tampa, FL. (1997)
Born: Port-of-Spain, Trinidad
EDUCATION
Master of Fine Arts, Multi-media Art, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL. (1996)
Bachelor of Arts, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL. (1991)
RESIDENCIES
Smack Mellon Artist Studio Program, Brooklyn NY (2010-2011).
Artist-in-Residence, John Michael Kohler, Arts Center, Sheboygan, WI (Summer 2008).
Caribbean Contemporary Arts, International Artist in Residence, Trinidad,
(Summer 2007).
Art Omi International Artist’s Colony, Hudson / New York, NY. (2004)
Artist-in-Residence, Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning, Queens, NY. (2004)
Big River 2 International Artists’ Workshop, Caribbean Contemporary Arts, Port-of-Spain, Trinidad (2001).
Artist-in-Residence, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY. (1999-2000)
Artist-in-Residence, Hunter College, Art Department, New York, NY. (2000)
Artist-in-Residence, Art Center South Florida, Miami Beach, FL. (1998)
Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, Maine / New York, NY. (1997)
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2011
Almost Undone, The Vilcek Foundation, New York, NY.
2008
Backwards and Forwards, Akus Gallery, Eastern Connecticut State University, Willimantic, CT.
2005
Local Ephemera, Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning, Queens, NY.
SECECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2011
Wrestling with the Image, OAS Art Museum of the Americas, Washington DC.
Global Caribbean, Museum of Contemporary Art, Puerto Rico.
2010
Global Caraibes, Musee International des Arts Modestes (MIAM), Sete, France.
Sex Symbols, Pool Art Fair, Gershwin Hotel, New York, NY
2009
Global Caribbean, Satellites at Art Basel, Little Haiti Cultural Complex, Miami.
Borders, Amelie A. Wallace Gallery, SUNY College at Old Westbury, NY.
2008
2008 Busan Biennale, Busan Museum of Modern Art, Busan, Korea
2007
Infinite Island: Contemporary Caribbean Art, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY.
Pilot 3, Monastery St Damien/St Cosimo, La Giudecca, Venice, Italy.
TRANS, Queens Library Gallery, Queens, NY.
2006
Tropicalism: Subversions of Paradise, Jersey City Museum, Jersey City, NJ.
“D’Asie d’Afrique”, Artist Commune, Kowloon, Hong Kong
Chimaera, Tenri Cultural Institute of New York, New York, NY
2005
Pilot: 2 International Art Forum, London, UK.
2004
Open House: Working in Brooklyn, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY.
2003
Biennial of Ceramics in Contemporary Art, Albisola, Italy.
Hope Box Tour, Morrocco, Eritrea, Egypt Mexico, Brazil, Kosova, South Africa.
After Matisse/ Picasso, PS1 / MOMA, Long Island City, NY.
637 Running Feet: Black on White Wall Drawings by 14 Artists, Queens Museum of Art, Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Queens, NY.
2002
Divergence, Rush Arts, New York, NY.
Model Citizens: Nicole Awai, Lennon Jon Baptiste, Tony Gray, Wangechi Mutu, Roger Smith Gallery, New York, NY.
2001
Panyard, Nicole Awai and Terry Boddie, Five Myles, Brooklyn, NY.
Between Lines, (traveling exhibition) Centro Cultural Cariforo, Palacio de Bellas Artes, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
Hope Box Peep-Show 2001, Queensland College of Art Gallery, Griffith University, Queensland, Australia.
Big River 2 International Artists Workshop Exhibition, Caribbean Contemporary Arts, Trinidad, West Indies.
New New York, Manuel Acevedo, Nicole Awai, Adam Baer , Ernest Jolicoeur, Akus Gallery, Eastern Connecticut State University, Willimantic, CT.
studio-visit.com - the show, 31 Grand, Brooklyn, NY.
2000
Greater New York: New Art in New York Now, PS1 / MOMA, Long Island City, NY.
From the Studio: Artists-in-Residence 1999-2000, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY.
Good Art is the Best Business: 20 Years of Artists In The Market Place, The Bronx Museum of Art, Bronx, NY
Frere, The New York Independent Art Fair, Hotel Chelsea Inn, New York, NY.
Weather Report, International Travelling Exhibition, Weather Report Foundation, Den Haag, The Netherlands.
Ziggy and the Black Dinosaurs and Other Folktales, Longwood Arts Center, Bronx, NY.
The Pocket Project, Entitled and the Rainbow Artists, Skylight Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
LECTURES AND INTERVIEWS
Bad at Sports, Episode 234: NADA 4 Awai / Blass pod cast (http://badatsports.com/)
Smack Mellon Studio Artists 2010
http://smackmellon.org/index.php/contact/current_studio_artist/
Panelist, Global Caribbean (s): Interrogating the Politics of Location in Caribbean Literature and Culture
Visiting Artist, Yale School of Art, Department of Painting, Printmaking and Sculpture (12/8/07).
Conversation from ‘Here’, panel discussion, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
(10/8/07).
Whitney Museum of American Art, Initial Public Offering: New Artists, New Curators, Nicole Awai and Rocio Aranda-Alvarado. (3/23/05)
Local Ephemera, Nicole Awai in Discussion with Edwin Ramoran and Rosamond King, Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning , Queens, NY (1/28/2005)
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Art Etc, >copy>paste>undo paste: Locating Caribbean Women Artists in the Diaspora,
By Joscelyn Gardner, Volume 2, Number 1
Le Monde, Sete Devoile la Creation De Jeunes Artistes Des Caraibes by Phillippe Dagen, August 20, 2010
Skowhegan Newsletter 2010, Alumni Remember Skowhegan, pg 13
Caribbean Art World Magazine, Global Caribbean Comes To Little Haiti: Inter, national Debates on Caribbean Art, by Marcel Wah and Marina Vatav
Small Axe: A Journal of Caribbean Criticism # 24, Email from ‘HERE’ by Nicole Awai, Fall/Winter 2007.
The Caribbean Review of Books, “An Island Is A World”, by Nicholas Laughlin, no.14, November 2007.
AM New York, Weekend, August 31-September 3, 2007.
Art Actuel, “L’Art Actuel Des Caraibes”, September/October 2007, #52.
New York Times, Art Review, From Young Storytellers, A Playful Tone: Contemporary Art Powerhouse’s Emerging Artists Show Promise, by Benjamin Genocchio, August 26, 2007.
New York Times, Art Review, Coloring a Tropical Paradise, by Benjamin Genocchio, December 3, 2006.
The International Review of African American Art, volume 20 no.2,
“Inveterate Outsider”, African American Women Artists Get Their Due (and Pay Them) by Margaret Vendryes.
Smallaxe.net, Sxspace, “Nicole Awai”, March 2005.
Flavorpill.net, Discussion: Art, Initial Public Offerings(I.P.O.):
by Paul Laster (3/22-3/2805).
Review: Literature and Art of the Americas 68, Volume 37, number1, ”The World of In-Between: An Interview with Nicole Awai”, Rocio Aranda-Alvarado, May 2004.
Gallery & Studio, New York Notebook, “Open House: A Museum grows in Brooklyn”, vol. 6 no. 5 June/July/August 2004.
New York Times, Art Guide, “Open House: Working in Brooklyn (w/repro), by Holland Cotter, April 30, 2004.
BOMB, Artists on Artists: Nicole Awai by Christopher Cozier, Winter 2003/2004.
Exibart.onpaper, eventi d’arte in Italia, Seconde Biennale di Ceramica d’ Arte Contemporanea, pg. 43, Ottobre 2003.
Urbanism: A Dialogue with Style in the City, by Rocio Aranda-Alvarado, April 2003, Caribbean Visual Culture Conference, Juan Carlos Center, New York University, NY.
NY Arts, "Hot Shows from the Edge: Summer in the City", by Carl E. Hazlewood, September 2002.
New York Times, Art Guide, "Model Citizens", by Ken Johnson, July 5, 2002.
Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art, Review "Culture and Memory, #13/14 spring/summer 2001.
New American Paintings, Sixth Open Studios Northeastern Competition, Volume # 32, March 2001.
New York Times, Art Review, "Picking Out Distinctive Voices in a Pluralistic Chorus", by Holland Cotter, August 18, 2000.
Time Out New York, “From the Studio: Artists-In-Residence 2000”, issue no. 254, August 3-10,2000.
Good Morning New York, television interview Fox Ch. 5 WNYW, August 10,2000.
studio-visit.com, "Nicole Awai", feature, interview with Heather Stephens, June 2000.
New York Times, Art Review, Good Art is the Best Business, Bronx Museum of Art, by Holland Cotter, May 12, 2000.
Harper's Bazaar, "United Artists", by Catherine Hong, May 2000.
AWARDS
Puffin Foundation Grant, Puffin Foundation LTD, Teaneck, NJ. (1998)
Payson Fellowship, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, Maine / New York, NY (1997).
Emerging Artist Grant, Arts Council of Hillsborough County, Tampa, FL. (1997)
Go Go Green Compulsion: Mix More Media!Graphite, acrylic paint and nail polish on paper
38” x 50”, 2010
Go Go Gone and Go Go Green: Mix More Media!2011
Go Go Gone – DetailAcrylic paint, polyurethane, nail polish, graphite, cotton linters fiber, wire form, wood and construction foam.
Approximately 6'(h) x 5'(w) x 4'(d)
2011
Haul – Detail
HaulGraphite, acrylic paint and nail polish on paper, polyurethane and construction foam
38” x 50” and (approximately) 6” x 24” x 18
2011
I’m not a Tourist: PrevailGraphite, acrylic paint and nail polish on paper
2011
Specimen from Local Ephemera: Drab HangerGraphite, acrylic paint, nail polish and glitter on paper
50” x 38”
2008
Specimen from Local Ephemera: Go Go Green Compression with Black OozeGraphite, acrylic paint and nail polish on paper
38” x 50”
2008
Cracked Black Love OozeAcrylic paint, polyurethane, vitreous china
Approximately 72” x 96”
2008-2011
Fantasy Garden / Black Love: KnowledgeAcrylic paint on paper, 26” x 38”
With
Cascading Black Love (In Black)
Vitreous china, approximately 12” x 18” x 8”, 2008
TouchedGrey flocking on black wall tile
Panels ( 17 ¾” x 26 ¼”), 2011
Elmo bites the dust! (In Prospect Park Ritual Space)Nail polish on paper
12” x 17”
2011
I’m Chucky, want to play? ( in Prospect Park Ritual Space)Nail polish on paper
17” x 12”
2011
Chroma-phobia 4, Vanilla Bean – Sally Hansen/ Xtreme WearAcrylic paint and nail polish on canvas
8” x 10”, 2010
Chroma-phobia 3: White Whip – Sally Hansen/ Hard As NailsAcrylic paint and nail polish on canvas
8” x 10”, 2010
White Out! With
All the White Stuff
Nail polish on packing labels, 2010