Artist Name: Nia Winslow
Residency Dates: April – June 2024
Born: 1989
Hometown: Washington, D.C.
Lives & Works: New York, NY
URL: closetartistry.com
Education:
2016 | St. John’s University, M.A. Experimental Psychology
2011 | Lincoln University, B.S. Clinical Psychology
Bio/Statement:
Nia Imani Winslow is a self-taught mixed media collage artist who draws inspiration from artists including Romare Bearden, Kerry James Marshall, Faith Ringgold, and Jacob Lawrence to illustrate the colorful essences of Black figures in each of her compositions. Using paper as her preferred material, Nia combines the complexities of different textures, cuttings and clippings to illuminate figures, moods and stories. Through her artistry, Nia combines her passion for style and her chosen medium to inspire self-love and inventiveness in individuals, with a principal focus on the African and Black diaspora.
Nia uses her work to emulate real-life experiences as it pertains to Black life. Mundane or complex, each piece is created to capture the essence of life through the lens of someone who experiences it. As no reality is the same, each work is created using several different pieces of paper and magazine clippings to create a completed composition. Each piece of material is used to represent a distinct emotion, background, and way of life. Each collection of clippings is used to produce a whole creation; therefore, she considers each work a piece of a whole. The “whole” represents Nia’s entire body of work – a conglomeration of designs used to depict separate, but sometimes similar Black existences.
The 2024 NYC-Based Artist Residency Program is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
