Nikkole Huss – Atmospheric Interventions

In her current exhibition, Nikkole Huss features the likeness of topographical terrain and outer space phenomena influenced by the appropriation of photographs collected from various sources including the Google Earth program and her personal Orion SkyQuest XT8 Dobsonian Reflector Telescope. Google Earth software is free, available online and provides the possibility of virtual globe-trekking from an aerial perspective, a reality made possible by the research of countless optical engineers, astrophysicists and computer software specialists. Camera lenses, housed within satellites, zoom in, focus on the Earth and capture images. As the data circulates between satellite source and computer screen, new snapshots are posted every few months. In addition, Huss captures views of the night sky by attaching the body of her DSLR camera to the lens of her telescope. By tapping into these complex vantage points, it is possible to perceive the impossible and make the intangible – tangible.

Although the large scale colored pencil and ink drawing and postcard size mixed media digital photographs are based on authentic landmarks or locations, abstractions are fortified with new growths and accumulated appendages are erased. Therefore, the translation between the original source and final representation is blurred. At this moment of intersection, atmospheric interventions occur. Surroundings sag and sway, bump and bruise, leak and bleed, and permeate through layers of movement and exhaustion. Scientific snapshots take a turn toward the often imperfect, subjective human interpretation of reality in an attempt to render the continuous cycle of nature. The physical fluctuation of shadows and subtle contours coupled with the overlay of clear and concealed areas travel far beyond the original source, space and time, revealing moments that are both transitory and ephemeral just as nature is fragile and vulnerable yet exemplifies a duality of inner strength, adaptability and resiliency.

NIKKOLE HUSS is an American artist and an Associate Professor of Art at Concordia University Chicago in River Forest, Illinois. In 2007, she was represented by ARTexhibitionLink in Berliner Liste '07 in Berlin, Germany and The Summer Show in Santa Severa, Italy. Her educational background consists of a B.S. Ed. from Northern Illinois University and an M.F.A. from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Additional information about the artist is featured on the R&F Handmade Paints website, www.rfpaints.com as part of July 2011 Artist of the Month curated by gallery director, Laura Moriarty.

ArtExhibitionLink
www.artexhibitionlink.com