Nikki SF

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Nikki SF is a San Francisco-based abstract painter whose large-scale paintings explore movement, layering, and change over time. Working from her studio at Hunters Point Shipyard - a decommissioned naval base on the San Francisco Bay - she examines perception and the relationship between natural and built environments. Her work is shaped by the surrounding water and the Shipyard’s shifting landscape, where nature coexists with its military and industrial past.

Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including in both editions of the de Young Open at San Francisco’s de Young Museum, during Miami Art Week, and in New York City’s Times Square, where it appeared on a 12,000-square-foot digital billboard.

Nikki holds a BA in Visual and Critical Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a master’s degree in Paleolithic Art from Université Lumière Lyon 2, becoming the first American to graduate from the university’s art history program. She lived in France for nearly a decade, teaching art history and English at an engineering university while developing her studio practice.

In 2024, she completed the Camino del Norte pilgrimage, walking more than 600 miles along Spain’s northern coast in 28 days. In 2026, she completed a second pilgrimage from Lisbon, Portugal, to Santiago de Compostela, Spain. The rhythm of long-distance walking continues to inform her approach to painting, connecting sustained physical movement with repeated gestures and gradual change.

Nikki serves on the Board of Directors of Shipyard Trust for the Arts, a nonprofit supporting more than 300 artists at Hunters Point Shipyard. Committed to environmental justice, she serves on California’s AB 617 Community Steering Committee for Bayview-Hunters Point/Southeast San Francisco and the Community Advisory Board for the Reducing Exposure with Air Cleaners and Technology (REACT) in At-Risk Communities study, a research collaboration with UC Berkeley and UCSF. This engagement informs her attention to changing landscapes and the often invisible forces that shape them.

ARTIST STATEMENT

My work explores how unseen forces and the passage of time can take visual form through abstraction. My influences shift with what I am reading, listening to, observing, and learning. Working beside the water at Hunters Point Shipyard, I also draw on the shifting light and the surrounding landscape, shaped by natural processes and industrial history. These sources inform my use of color, texture, and layered marks.

I work in series, returning to related structures while allowing each painting to evolve. I build up the surface by adding and reworking marks. Earlier layers continue to shape the painting, even when they are no longer visible. Throughout this process, I balance deliberate choices with the unpredictable ways colors and layers interact.

Walking the Camino del Norte in 2024 and the Portuguese Camino in 2026 deepened my interest in duration and repetition. On the Camino, the repeated act of moving forward carried me through a continually changing landscape. Painting follows a similar rhythm: small shifts accumulate, and each gesture responds to what came before.

My environmental justice work in Bayview-Hunters Point has sharpened my attention to systems that affect a place without being immediately visible. I am currently developing a series of paintings using visualizations of gamma-ray measurements as a starting point. Through this work, I am exploring how abstraction can give form to things beyond our immediate perception and make scientific information more accessible.