Donny Nie (b. 1997) is a painter and interdisciplinary artist. She received an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a BFA from OCAD University. Nie is currently an Assistant Professor of Art at Knox College.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Painting is the matrix within my practice, a device to process time in various rhythms: stretch one mark into an animation, or condense one memory to an impression. My research ponders painting as a virtual identity, a persona with encoded privacy and portals of disclosure. The abstraction incorporates subtle figurative scaling in brushstrokes (fingertip, tongue, pupil, etc.) to draw attention onto a sensual experience. The large-scale pieces obsessively collect enormous colors and tissues to map out the exhaustion and exuberance in performing. 

The paintings retain their previous life through accumulated paint skins from my palettes. As these organic archives build up physically, they deteriorate from my memory gradually. The mark making processes merged liminal spaces, responds to my migration across landscapes and environments. The intuitive compositions shimmer in a continuous disposition to seek equilibrium. The small-scale sculptures capture singular gestures, contextualize a brushstroke by projecting it into a three-dimensional capacity. They are aspiring objects suspended between a paradoxical state: an ephemerality that crystallizes to pursue permanence. From large-scale oil painting, monotype, digital projection, to small-scale ceramic and glass forms, my interdisciplinary abstractions coalesce into a gestalt, magical experience.

Via transformation in both optical and chemical states, the alchemy of my artwork exemplifies a state of proximity to commemorate potentials in living. I am driven by an obsession with transparency as a metaphor, to pick up and dissolve invisible boundaries. The artworks materialize a desire to archive, control, and situate within progression.