NIARUS WALKER
Artist
MY STORY
Like a dream, life is transient, mysterious and illusive. When I first thought about art and the reason that I make it, I realized that what I was doing was sharing experiences which others may or may not have had.My work varies in its physical manifestation, however it is singularly a way of communicating how I see the life.
Experience, as part of life itself is momentary and we retain those experiences through memories which in turn forms our identity. Collected within our memory are objects, people, and events, which help create what we know of ourselves and our world.
Memory is important to me because of a lifetime of memory loss and forgetfulness. At 48 I was told that I was ADD, while getting treatment for breast cancer. That revelation cleared up so much for me and helped me understand myself much better.
The other revelation was that the art that I make matter. For so much of my life I couldn't see the relevance of it and questioned the what and the why of it. One clear symptom of ADD other than my forgetfulness is my inability to focus on just one specific genre or type of art or even one type of medium. I need to continually explore and play with various media.
For a long time I have been intrigued by the Vanitas and my mortality is always on my mind. I do not fear death because I believe that the soul is eternal, but the transience of time is ever before me. Ironically before my diagnosis I felt strongly that I should explore the idea of the Vanitas, in that I needed to examine the brevity of existence and consider what is really important.
Currently I am painting works inspired by Dutch and Flemish Vanitas genre with an eye towards contemporary issues and figurative works which focuses on memory and experience with references to identity and consciousness