Nikki Suebwongpat is a New Zealand born artist now living and working in Sydney. In 2014, following a career as a chemical engineer, Nikki returned to her first passion (painting) and now divides her time between working as mother, artist and engineer.
Painting in oils, her love of colour and contrast is clear with her often exaggerated, yet at times subdued palette. She uses bold brush strokes to block in shapes and colours to describe form.
Much as Margaret Olley saw her own home as inspiration, Nikki´s still life works are sourced from around her own home surroundings; the naturally accumulated artefacts of living amongst children, cooking utensils, school memorabilia, light sabres, and everyday life graced by a vase of glorious flowers that, like Olley´s fresh cut flowers, whither as Nikki works capturing their life.
Nikki Suebwongpat is also very drawn toward landscape painting.
I am not really a plein-aire painter, although I would like the opportunity and time to paint directly from the landscape, but with current life commitments... I take lots of photos and make sketches recording the scene whether suburban or found in nature... inspiration can be found at every opportunity, and I am often seen snapping away on my iPhone when stumbling across a scene or a moment that stops me in my tracks...
Observation of the spontaneous beauty and simplicity found in the every day, informs both her still life and her landscape painting, such that the reality of the scene, as seen through her painters eye, is paramount to her interpretation.
About her recent solo exhibition Nikki observes, I am fascinated with painting glass –it’s transparent, only visible in terms of what it reflects, and its relationship to its environment. It becomes its surroundings, yet distorting them... I think this is an interesting metaphor for life, how nothing we do or feel or learn is in isolation. How we may be shaped by our environment more than we like to think. Honing in on the reflections, the colours and shapes created by the light, one forgets what an object is, or its purpose.
Glassware brings clarity, enlarges and distils. It also brings murkiness, uncertainty and fragmentation. In the stillness of reflecting, we glean moments of pure truth and wisdom, which if followed too far will unravel, wreaking uncertainty and chaos. I see beauty in the unknown, in the ambiguity.
Nikki Suebwongpat, 2021
Solo Exhibitions: (Selected)
2021 A Life Less Ordinary, Artsite Galleries, Sydney, NSW.
2019 Life - Never Still, Artsite Galleries, Sydney, NSW.
Group Exhibitions: (Recent Selected)
2020 Collector´s Choice 2020, Artsite Galleries, Sydney, NSW.
Packsaddle Exhibition, New England Regional Gallery, Armidale, NSW.
Take Away, Artsite Galleries, Sydney, NSW.
2019 Collector´s Choice 2019, Artsite Galleries, Sydney, NSW.
Packsaddle Exhibition, New England Regional Gallery, Armidale, NSW.
2018 Collector´s Choice 2018, Artsite Galleries, Sydney, NSW.
A Sydney Flower and Garden Show, Artsite Galleries, Sydney, NSW.
Espirit de Corps, Artsite Galleries, Sydney, NSW.
2017 Collector´s Choice 2017, Artsite Galleries, Sydney, NSW.
2016 Collector´s Choice 2016, Artsite Galleries, Sydney, NSW.
The Still Life Exhibition, Artsite Galleries, Sydney, NSW.
Resonance, Artsite Galleries, Sydney, NSW.
2015 Collector´s Choice 2015, Artsite Galleries, Sydney, NSW.
2014 Blackwattle Café Gallery, Sydney, NSW.
Du Moulin Gallery, Annandale, Sydney, NSW.
Finalist Exhibition, Urban Photography Competition, Marrickville Town Hall, Sydney, NSW.
Class Art Gallery, Sydney, NSW.
