Artist Statement
My process of making pictures derives from collecting and accumulating materials: personal photography, magazine and internet gleanings, snippets of conversation, news items, the flora, fauna and cultural detritus of my immediate environs. These materials percolate, collect dust, are hauled out, mulled over, shelved, reconstituted and digested over a period of days, months or many years before they are used, if at all. The act of combining these bits is akin to visual alchemy-there are directions taken but mostly the process leads itself, allowing my augmentations and overlay of craft to converge.
Artist Info
Jack Niven is an artist living and working in New Orleans since 2005. His most recent solo exhibition in New Orleans was titled Memory Logos, at Martine Chaisson Gallery. His curatorial project concurrent with Prospect.1 was called, American Beauty, South – a collection of artist produced billboards mounted on Motels located along a stretch of Highway 61 in New Orleans (www.americanbeautysouth.com). His work can be found in private and public collections in Europe, Canada and the United States. A new street mural, Liberty’s Mule, on view during Prospect.2 at Liberty Lumber Yard on Tchoupitoulas Street, was recently featured in the Oxford American’s, Best of The South 2012. Jack is also a member of the Staple Goods Artists Collective in New Orleans.
