Education & Awards

An Art Historian on NiNi’s Work

NiNi’s works are a feast for the senses: rich in texture, materiality, layers and a multifaceted expressive power bursting with joy. She incorporates found objects of many different materials, carelessly discarded by others, into works on canvas or wooden panels. In doing so, she creates an emotional connection between the past and the present, giving these objects a new, highly emotional and even sensual future. Perception, language and communication are among NiNi’s passions, and meaningful texts therefore also find their way into her work.

Letters and numbers are enlarged and draw the viewer’s attention. Removed from their original typographic meaning, they are sometimes reduced to purely graphic elements. In this way, viewers are challenged to reflect on and reconsider their own forms of communication: context versus decontextualisation versus established patterns of perception.

Always searching for narrative key elements, NiNi might discover a handwritten love letter at a flea market, a word taken from a newspaper headline, a piece of rusty iron unearthed from a skip, a handwritten shopping list, a torn scrap of fabric, rare photographs of jazz musicians from the 1930s, or images of pop icons and Mickey Mouse.

NiNi seeks out and discovers beauty and deep emotion in ordinary, discarded objects. These objects carry within them their own stories of places, times and people. Taken out of their original context and recomposed, forgotten and unwanted fragments are transformed through a process of re-composition into a new synthesis, opening the imagination to new meanings and associations.

The result is an entire world of adventure, filled with witty, perceptive, thought-provoking and entertaining narratives, a generous gift of beauty and honesty created from fragments once considered worthless.

Each canvas becomes a field of inspiration, combining emotion with expressive power and releasing enormous creative potential. This is particularly evident in NiNi’s commissioned works. She engages deeply with the wishes, needs and emotions of her clients, incorporating them into her paintings, sometimes clearly recognisable to others, sometimes carefully concealed.

With great care and sensitivity, NiNi creates works that, despite their complexity, multiple layers and diversity, retain a sense of classical elegance. They continually reveal new details and relationships to the viewer. The chaotic diversity of life is brought into balance, yet a playful sense often remains, quietly revealing itself to those who look closely. The works never disclose all their secrets at once.

Susanne Blaser, Art Historian