NIKKI FOSTER

  • Original Features

    I would like to clarify the remark I made in With Love from the Suburbs about our house being eerie, to place it somehow, somewhere. What are the truths in this claim, if any? I could ask my kids. When they have to fetch something from an empty or unlit room, they dash there noisily, turning on…

  • Very Base

    Recently I’ve been thinking about iterations. I think it makes sense to think about iterations when considering our familial routines and rhythms: doing the same things, using the same objects. I’ve been avoiding spending money on new materials, so after running out of water-based oil paints I’ve just been using up my acrylics. Any acrylics…

  • With Love from the Suburbs

    I’m making a series of work based on everyday life in the suburbs: observing my kids, our surroundings, and something else too, time passing. I’ve always found the idea of the suburbs fascinating in books and films in their rhythms, aspirations and longings. What you see and hear of your neighbours’ lives brings a blurring…

  • Everything Colliding

    The first thing I ever sat down and properly painted was a horse. I think I must have been 13. It was quite funny because I didn’t particularly like horses. On a visit to the New Forest as a younger child with my family, I broke away from them and approached a group of horses…

  • Body Building

    I have been looking recently at the work of Alex Katz and Wilhelm Sasnal. What they appear to have in common is their use of film stills, photographic imagery, and an interest in the influence of illustration and advertising. Music is also present in both conversations. I draw these comparisons from listening to both of…

  • Red Shoes

    Last night I slept downstairs on the sofa; it is so cool and peaceful down there. I woke in the night to hear running footsteps above me. I thought maybe it was one of the kids, though when I checked, no one was there. It struck me this morning that, despite the initial withdrawal, I…

  • 100 days

    I am writing this after emerging from a house that has been in the throes of norovirus. We all dropped like flies, first the youngest two, then myself and my daughter. Beforehand, I had planned to do the 100 Day Project, which starts on 22 February. This year I wanted to approach it differently, without…

  • Ephemera

    Last week, I found a Ferrero Rocher wrapper tucked inside a library book. It felt like a small interruption, a trace of someone else’s moment. I love this residue sometimes found in library books: the folded corners of pages, the underlined passages of text. I began thinking about the idea of found ephemera and the…

  • Work in Translation

    Dear fellow artist, I’m writing to you from 100 days of rain in Dublin, honestly, it feels biblical! It was difficult writing this letter as I am always anxious about writing because I’m never sure if I will get my point across clearly or articulate my work properly. I’ve had this hang-up since Camberwell, where…

  • Wide Open

    My daughter moves through the house aloofly, often on the make, keeping herself on the periphery. It is strange to see. I flatter myself by questioning: is this why I took so many photographs of her last year? Some sort of pre-emptive foresight that she’d soon be more independent, moving out of the fold. My…