by Ariadna Zierold
Nikki Maloof lives and works in Brooklyn. Jungle animals and exotic vegetation appear frequently in Maloof’s drawings, paintings and collages. Often surrounded by luminous tropical hues, tigers, monkeys and bats can seem either benign or sinister, reticent or theatrical, and adopt an anthropomorphic quality that discloses a sense of the artist’s compassion for her subject matter.
The same lightness of hand with paint, color and line, hints at the somber and dejected aspects of the domestic and quotidian – drooping flowers, in a vase or overcome by rain, and the view, from a distance, of the warmly lit interiors of people’s homes through window panes. Maloof’s works tend toward the familiar yet maintain a level of un-specifiable strangeness that produces their emotive quality.
