"Creating is Life, Life is Creating"
Artist Statement: "My art is an expression of my life, my thoughts and how the world effects me on a daily basis. I grew up with high admiration for artists and the arts. It never ceases to amaze me what someone can create either through dance, expressions with words, through paint or whatever objects are on hand. Life without art would be a blank canvas.
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Pablo Picasso once said “There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others with the help of their art and their intelligence who transform a yellow spot into the sun.” Niki J Sands is a self-taught painter who creatively uses her imagination, intelligence and introspection to transform her “spots” of thought and time into intriguing expressions of the worlds around and within us.
Niki began her artistic journey as so many incredible artists before her, with a simple love for art in all forms…music, dance, painting and sculpture. Her fascination with painting and her appreciation for the works of Picasso and Kahlo fired a desire within her to create art of her own.
Thankfully, her lack of a formal art education did not deter her from pursuing her dreams. Through diligent self-study and experimentation and an innate ability to combine form and color, Niki’s work has become widely recognizable, well respected and highly collectible.
Her paintings can be found in modern galleries as well as the dais’ of many charitable events. Niki has donated her time, energy and innumerable works of art to charitable causes including St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Innovations Charter School and other worthwhile causes.
Her work can be vibrant and vividly colorful with a strong Mediterranean influence; “an expression of my life” as the daughter of Greek immigrants she likes to point out.
Cubist and surreal characters often populate her works; sometimes childlike and whimsical……often pensive and introspective.
“I truly paint from within. My art is inseparably bound up by my personality and soul!” and this is most evident in her portraits. They embody the soul of her subjects….. some possessed with an ethereal, ghostly charm and others exuding an earthy vitality.
Niki J Sands creates unusual, beautiful, compelling paintings that suffuse a maturity and complexity that belies her naïve artistic beginnings. She is an exciting contemporary artist whose passion and dedication to her work is already inspiring new artists to “transform a yellow spot into the sun.”