A week long Exhibition and a Show on the 25th November 2020
A call out to everybody who would like to show a hat made by themselves.
If you were curious about hats that were created by crafters join us to showcase your work.
All you have to do?
Bring a hat that you have made and come and see it displayed
The Orangery, Marlay Park
21st-28th November
Installation and Showcase
22-25th March @ The Orangery, Marlay Park, Dublin 15
An Exhibition commenting on people fleeing warzones or places where life is under threat.
Opening remarks by Superintendent Rauiri O’Douling and H.E. Gergana Karadjova Ambassador to Bulgaria in Ireland
Web of Devastation
Devastation starting from the moment of darkness when/where life and holds by delicate web.
The Lattice of Us
The moment when we start gathering what is left of us and what was us and put it together gearing up to be hopeful.
Chains of Doom
The moment when we look for environmental and community restraints to stop us from going forward
Ropes of Reason
The moment when we are ridden by hope and we stop yourselves from doing what we need to by justifying it with being reasonable.
Wings of Hope
Rebirth of us using all that was already there- just letting the light in.
City as Sanctuary
My City is My Sanctuary- the grey felted coat with green streaks representing structure. Showcasing the strive to create balanced and considerate community for all of us living together.
This piece was unveiled at Council of Irish Fashion Designers Autumn Fashion Show. It was a collaboration supported by Design and Crafts Council of Ireland.
The collaboration paired artists like myself with CIFD members in order to develop new work informed by each others practices.
I was paired with Betzy from Sandia Dublin, a jewelry maker with passion for cut rubber embellishments.
I loved working on the piece as it gave me a license to learn. I had a mentoring session with Kate Betts Hats who showed me some techniques for attaching free standing details such as the tenticals that I made.
The central idea of the piece is to celebrate differences as a crowning glory of your character.
Looking into perception of women. Reflecting on senses and abilities and how the changing status of women in communities changes the attitude towards character and talent. From fear to light, from Fragility to Monumentality. Broadly looking into insight and senses as strength. It also nods to the omnipotence of nature “crowning” the female goddess with pollen pods informed tentacles.
ThThe piece is beautiful, strong and authentic- just like Niki & Betzy.
It is a homage to contemporary Ireland. It showcases Ireland as the land of 1000 welcomes as a disabled immigrant from Bulgaria and a Venezuelan were enabled to create and build a living out of their passion.
Here in Ireland.
Amongst the folk they call home.
Materials: handmoulded wool, silk and handcut expanded rubber.
Techniques- wet felting, wire manipulation, handstitch.
The piece made the front page of the Irish Independent and got a lot a praise during the show.
I’m delighted that it is also curated for the Knit and Stitch show in RDS Dublin this autumn.
One of my sculptures: My Egg. Do not Sit! is going to an international exhibition in Finland.
The work is a textile sculpture of a human egg in the process of fertilisation. It contributes to the debate about ownership, choice and human rights. Who owns a woman’s egg?
The complex multi-layered textile sculpture is informed by a microscopic photo of a human egg. It is built through both solid and hollow shapes that are intertwined together. The sculpture uses warm colours associated with beginnings and round shapes both as negative and positive spaces and shapes in various textile making methods: shibori, lace, nunofelt and solid felt. Colour, shape and methods unite to further emphasise the depth and complexity of the arguments the piece embodies. The artist’s stance is expressed in the mount. It looks like a vessel, in this case a chair, but the artist’s instructions are clear. It is mine and you do to not use it in this way. It is Not Your Vessel. The owner has expressed their desire. It is also made delicately so that you cannot actually sit on it. You will break it if you do. Still, the choice stays with you.
The choice of materials in developing the piece was also reflective of the complex history that women have with reproduction and birth. It is a considered selection of merino wool, silk fibres, the staple of any felting texture. Then in the nuno felt I have embodied knit mohair from a friend that knits many wraps for new mums. and vintage silk from my grandmother as well as Russian silk from mum who had experience a really scary childbirth with me. There is Blueface Leicester fibres as they are the foundation and ever lasting presence in all my core work. And a bit of a raw and hairy fibre from a the dog of a friend. She shared with me a story of her miscarriage and I asked her if it would be ok to use the fibre from her best friend , her dog. And as it is always in this situations I have used a handful of fibres that are from a sheep whose name I know and whose owner is a friend of mine.
The piece looked impossible to make as with its complex structure took a while to digest from the microscopic photos I have seen to the 3d object I have developed. I have tried it in several sizes and also experimented with various ways to incorporate the complex shapes and textures. It took half an year to develop the prototype. And I have discussed it with several mentors.
Please note that in the next photo I am wearing the One Hat. The one hat always come out when we are at a cross roads and need to make a hard choice. A choice that might make us grow out of our comfort zone or our understanding of what is right to us, might not be right to others.
The most insightful conversation was with Marjolein Dallinga who gave me a generous insight into the connection between fibre authenticity and structure.
I have also discussed it with Brigitta Varadi at its early development as I needed insight of developing a mounting that would reflect the message consistently.
The positive and insightful feedback that I have received from my mentors enabled me to work further in the direction of creating the work.
The exhibition is a collaboration between Feltmakers Ireland and Finnish Feltmakers Association. The call out was for ‘A touch of Red’ pieces that interpret the colour or the concept in the pieces developed for consideration of the judging panel.
The exhibition runs from 1st July to 4th in Jämsä, Finland
The gallery is an old bank building overt two floors in the town centre.
Feltmakers Ireland is the national organization with members throughout Ireland. It supports work in felt to both amateur and professional crafts people.
I was so glad that my work was selected for this exhibition- it is such a core story in my practice.
Event Duration: 9th February – 23rd June 2019
Monumentality-Fragility is an international exhibition of curated works from the 2018 European Prize for Applied Arts, that will be hosted at the Kildare National Gallery from the 9th February 2019.
The prize, which is organised by the World Crafts Council, aims to reward the best creations of contemporary expression in applied arts and craftsmanship. It looked into monumental and fragile, the strong colour palette, exuberant proportions, the power and the violence allude to a monumental character from which a palpable fragility is released. With the European Triennial these two words were also part of the monumentality of this institution and the fragility of the nations and entities that make it up. Artists were asked to take inspiration from the paradoxical of this 2 themes.
Niki’s submission consisted of three sculptures of viruses: the Common Cold, Hepatitis B and Herpes. Each of these has disrupted our contemporary culture by changing our conversation on monumental and fragile.
Viruses as living organisms are still both a challenge and a mystery regardless of our scientific advances. Doctors as part of the current perception of ”The Establishment” are often held hostage to our perception of them being heroes rather than humans. Here the concept of small and significant are juxtaposed using scientific concepts to mirror our own fears. As viruses are necessary ingredient to life on our planet the destruction of them explores what is an act of heroism and an act of fear? The interrelation between personal fears – our vulnerability and resilience and how they influence macro decisions related to health and life. It is also a dialogue of what makes an object beautiful to us- its form or its function?
The works are developed as wet felted sculptures.
The Common Cold virus is one of the best known surviving organism on earth. It is a symbolic tale of how survival of the species is mostly about the ability to grow in change. The Herpes virus and Hep B are part of the history of gay rights as they have made the invisible visible and as such started the conversation of what we sweep under the carpet.
The viruses have previously been curated for DCCoI Pattern, Design Week in Bulgaria, West Cork Art Festival.
Further details on these sculptures as well as sculptures of other viruses can be found here.
