Nicole Awai
Nominated by: Olu Oguibe
Trinidad
Lives/works: NY, USA
Statement
Born in Trinidad and educated in the US, New York artist Nicole Awai belongs to a new generation of artists from the Caribbean now striving to establish their presence on the international contemporary art scene. She has exhibited widely in the US as well as internationally.
ARTIST'S STATEMENT
I am examining the subtle psychosis of cultural interpretation and re-interpretation. Cultural artifacts that I find or that are given to me guide the examination. The work is a visual kaiso (calypso) that employs humor and satire to comment on various and varying events.
“…calypso is rhetorical and it has become the versatile vehicle for coherent, programmatic presentation of ideas on a limitless range of subjects and themes, local, foreign and international… kaiso may be vividly descriptive or carefully (but by no means always logically) argumentative. Or it may call for simple narration or subtle exposition.” – Raymond Quevedo
Specimens from Local Ephemera
Local Ephemera could be viewed as a parallel world but what is taking place is very much about ‘HERE’ – a report from HERE- wherever I am is HERE.
What triggers us into hyper consciousness? What makes us aware of the in-between spaces, the slippage, around and beyond the boundaries?
Objects that seem to naturally belong in Local Ephemera because they are in ways so outrageous and or bizarre to me, e.g. an ante-bellum topsy-turvy doll inspire the field drawings. Objects that allude to connotations and contradictions that turn ideas and issues inside out. I carefully and care-lessly construct and reconfigure these images.
The technical drawing format that I use lends clarity where there is none (really). The language of the mechanical (hardware) elements is combined with the action of the subjects. The Sensation Code, a map legend (of sorts) comprised of nail polish chips adds to or further implies a narrative direction. The combinations of these elements (subject, adjectives and actions) together create intention. In Specimen from Local Ephemera: Tension Springs, the blue print symbol for a tension spring elucidates the action of the figures bursting out of the white ooze.
In Specimen from Local Ephemera: Drab Hanger, the hanger is a plastic fixture that is made to adhere to concrete or cinder block walls, and Drab by L’Oreal (an olive, army green), is the name of a nail polish color located in the Sensation Code.
The recent works in the Culturally Unspecific series, Base and Shadow: Orange Joy Kitty in Cellophane and Fantasy Garden Black Love: Knowledge and Information are more direct and less allegorical. The address the cultural triggers in the here and now. Black Love is the painted reproduction of the front and back packaging of a popular brand of incense in Japan. Orange Joy Kitty in Cellophane is the underside (painted)/ base of the very stylized Japanese kitten ornament with one paw raised and the shadow that this object casts (in graphite).
Recent Exhibitions (Download full CV here)
Solo Exhibitions
2005
Local Ephemera, Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning, Queens, NY
Selected Exhibitions
2007
Infinite Island: Contemporary Caribbean Art, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY.
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, Brooklyn, NY.
2003
Biennial of Ceramics in Contemporary Art, Albisola, Italy.
Hope Box Tour, Morocco, Eritrea, Egypt Mexico, Brazil, Kosova , South Africa.
After Matisse/ Picasso, PS1 Contemporary Art Center, 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 Jno 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.
New New York, Manuel Acevedo, Nicole Awai, Adam Baer , Ernest Jolicoeur, Akus Gallery, Eastern Connecticut State University,
Willimantic,CT.
2000
Greater New York: New Art in New York Now, PS1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, NY.
From the Studio: Artists-in-Residence 1999-2000, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY.
Frere, The New York Independent Art Fair, Chelsea Hotel, New York, NY.
Weather Report, Weather Report Foundation, Den Haag, The Netherlands.
1998
Artists in the Market Place Exhibition, The Bronx Museum of Art, Bronx, NY.
Homelands, Nicole Awai, Sara Good, Karen Stinnett, St. Petersburg Center for the Arts, St. Petersburg, FL.
1997
Prints and Processes, Raymond James Room, Salvador Dali Museum, St. Petersburg,FL.
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)
Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, Maine / New York, NY. (1997)
AWARDS, INTERVIEWS AND RESIDENCIES
Caribbean Contemporary Arts, International Artist in Residence, Trinidad,
(Summer 2007).
Whitney Museum of American Art, Initial Public Offering: New Artists, New Curators, Nicole Awai and Rocio Aranda-Alvarado. (3/23/05)
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. (2000)
Artist-in-Residence, Hunter College, Art Department, New York, NY. (2000)
Artist-in-Residence, Art Center South Florida, Miami Beach, FL. (1998)
Puffin Foundation Grant, Puffin Foundation LTD, Teaneck, NJ. (1998)
Payson Fellowship, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, Maine / New York, NY (1997).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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).
Smallaxe.net, Sxspace, “Nicole Awai”, March 2005.
Flavorpill.net, Discussion: Art, Initial Public Offerings (I.P.O.): New Artists, New
Curators, Nicole Awai and Rocio Aranda-Alvarado (3/22-3/28/05).
Small Axe, volume 8.2, “Resonance: The Essence of the Playing Field”, by
Rocio Aranda-Alvarado, September 2004.
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.
The Biennial of Ceramic in Contemporary Art, (exhibition catalogue w/repro), Attese Onlus, Milan, Italy.
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" by Rocio Aranda-Alvarado, #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.
www.smallaxe.net/sxspace/works.html
www.jerseycitymuseum.org/exhibitions/tropicalisms/index.html
www.artnet.com/ag/fineartthumbnails.asp?G=8&cid=16675
