Davidson-Bowman Nikki
Knowledge
Paint & Collage
2022
‘Knowledge’ seeks to raise awareness of the unseen role of (primarily) female family carers, who struggle to care whilst experiencing personal changes, sacrifice and loss; absorbing the burden of care for loved ones that are slowly dying.
I am a conceptual artist working with found vintage photographs, ephemera & words to explore female stories of resilience. I expose the darker sides of life, blurring the semi-autobiographical with fiction to highlight the precariousness of being human, to start intergenerational dialogues about silent happenings, such as terminal illness, infertility, caring, dementia & hearing loss.
Research & the process of making are fundamental to my practice, where rules & repetition often feature, developing intriguing installations, interventions, sculptures, collages, prints & poetry. I inject new life into, often, discarded materials as a body for storytelling, creating poetic appropriated narratives, combined with imagery, to reveal a complex and intimate experience, using the past (vintage words and photographs) to mask & expose difficult truths.
Mothering Mother is a series of works made in response to my mother’s terminal neurological diagnosis (motor neurone disease/ALS) and her cognitive dysfunction (a subtle form of dementia), where the role of ‘mother’ was subsequently and drastically reversed.
Creativity provides a sense of purpose & an outlet for emotional & psychological states, whilst coexisting as mother, daughter, wife, artist & carer, helping me to process the powerlessness and trauma. I seek to make a connection with others, acknowledging the truths about dying and encourage open conversations. With the only realistic goal being that subsequently these small works would become greater than the sum of their parts, the studio time acts as a nurturing space for the anticipatory grief of what is to come and the loss of what was my normal as the role of daughter becomes that of family carer.
