NIKKI FOSTER

  • To Be Let In

    Yesterday morning I booked a seat for a talk by Hettie Judah at Rua Red in Tallaght, Dublin: How to Enter the Art World After…  Around the same time, I read this line by writer Sara Baume in an article written for Ocula magazine: ‘I am a solitary person, generally disinclined, at this stage in my life, to…

  • Eyes in Midsummer

    It’s summer, a hot summer. Every day we head out in shorts and t-shirts. The grass turns yellow. Our skin freckles and darkens, and we compare arms. Most days are busy and I have little time. I write a few words in my journal, what we did, if we tried anything new, any strange dreams.…

  • Just One More Push

    This morning, I woke up groggy after double-dosing on the valerian tablets I take to help me sleep. I think it’s okay to double dose because they’re herbal, but it takes an hour or so in the morning to shake off the daze. My six-year-old son came running into the kitchen. “Mummy, Mummy, look!” He…

  • Worlding

    My sister rang me this evening, and we chatted about everyday things. On the video call, she is walking along a promenade in Faro. “How is your artwork going, Nik?” A surprise question, which catches me off guard. “Um, good, I think. I’ve just finished two large paintings.” “Oh yeah? What are they about?” “Oh,”…

  • Outtakes

    Maybe I want the inversion The twist of the arm The underside of the offering Pale and pimpled from lack of sun Unpolished Not the underbelly That is something different I’m not ready for I see it in my father’s eyes Chest infection after chest infection His body fails him In my turn Three children…

  • Always Restless, Always Longing

    These photographs were taken in my hometown of Bournemouth, with an M35 Kodak camera. The first photograph shows me sitting at my grandmother’s dressing table. I used to love sneaking into her bedroom and looking through her dressing table drawers at her lipsticks and foundations, eyeshadows and mascaras. My mother didn’t wear makeup, so it…

  • Mind the Red Dots

    Yesterday, I left my cluttered and stuffy studio space in the box room of our house and cycled into town on my son’s blue bike. I love cycling: the freedom of it, especially in the city, where in winter you can be bound to buses and other forms of public transport. It’s amazing in Dublin…

  • Deconstructing, Reconstructing

    Can we play a game? My son asks as he takes a sip from a bottle of water. I pause to take a photograph, framing him from low down to catch the rim of light on his hands and face. When you take a photograph, you step outside of the moment. Out of time, the…

  • Remote Response

    It is, for me, always strange and exciting to see my paintings hung in a gallery space through a digital image, knowing I will not be present in person to see the work itself. You imagine yourself standing there, looking at your work, looking at the other works around it. Maybe you even get a…

  • Let’s Bring This Outside

    ‘I don’t go to therapy, I Golf’ Troy in Beef, Season 2 Recently, at a party, I was sat with two women, one a close friend, one a friend of my close friend. My friend was talking about her experience visiting a Lacanian psychotherapist. ‘Oh, I don’t think he got a good read on you…