February 18 – March 27, 2010

Nikki Lindt: SOLASTALGIA Recent Paintings and Works on Paper
Images

Press Release

SOLASTALGIA, from the Latin solacium (comfort) and the Greek, algia (pain)— which is defined as “the pain experienced when there is recognition that the place where one resides and loves is under under immediate assault . . . a form of homesickness one gets when one is still at ‘home.’

Nikki Lindt’s focus is on her figures in the natural environment. They maneuver through landscapes, beaches, mountains and forests, often scurrying, bent over or attempting very direct contact with the terrain. “I paint the figures small to create a kind of tenderness for them and a false sense of harmlessness, and at the same time when hung as a group they can give a sense it is kind of scary that people are literally in every bend, nook and curve of the world.” There are no man-made elements in the paintings and the figures are engaged yet they seem a bit lost in their environments.

These small, punch-packing paintings are usually created in single sittings. Acrylic paint is sparely layered with large, gestural brush strokes, rendering blustery, nature-based scenes that look like dreams or memories. The acrylic paint is watered down looking almost like ink in the first layers of the paintings and often some of the first layers can be seen in parts of the final piece. Lindt’s figures appeared to be worked out in detail but when looking closer you see they are painted in a looser, gestural manner.

Nikki Lindt received her MFA from Yale University in 1997 and her BFA in 1995 from Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. She has been the recipient of the Pollock Krasner Grant and the Environmental Culture Award/Grant from the Dutch Environmental Protection Agency. Nikki lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. This is her first solo exhibition at Heskin Contemporary.