Position Statement
Nilik Khimani is a 28-year-old, British-Indian Interdisciplinary Artist and Multi Disciplinary Creative and Fine Artist. His works span performance art, photography, writing, painting, video, sculpture, and fashion.
Nilik has completd a BA (Hons) Photography from University of the Arts London. His work frequently explores ideologies around identity, reflexivity, and theologies around the transformative. Seeking to bring comfort, heal, and bring freedom to a society bound by restriction, by reduction, and by regulation, his works are both destructive and meditative. Nilik has studied under the direction of various mentors such as Peter Liversidge, Jonny Briggs, and Esther Teichmann.
In creating his fine-art works, he attempts to heal himself as creator, and ‘normalise’ otherness intrinsically and extrinsically. Often feeling shackled by the tropes of what is expected as a second-generation immigrant male of Indian origin, his works (e.g Ayurvedic Lucidity) offer a space and time for self-reflection and transformation and are often abstract in nature. He is very interested in what it means to exist authentically, self-intrigued by what it means to be defined and being the definer; what he describes as potentiality. What some describe as alter-egos present within his work featuring himself, he says are more lateral performances of how he is, and how it should be, a change for change.
His works are more visceral than visual, circumscribed by cultural belief and experience, making the “other” things, the things to be admired. Nilik attempts to activate a situations of transformation of self through establishing moments of reflection, and questioning normative narratives of ‘I’. Nilik advocates for a more accepting rationale on difference through amelioration. A re-birth and re-claiming of ‘self’ within ‘them’, granting a freedom of narrative in order to fulfil individual potential.
More recently, investigating into his origins, Nilik has been exploring the core semiotics of the cultured experience and identity, exploring the differences between East and West. Where the norms of the opulent East is considered queer in the West, where culture and religion still defines daily life, a life that has its own visual identity. Translated into his sense of style, he is often adorned in jewellery, and has become particularly notable for his opulent way of dressing over the past few years. Nilik has recently been involved in fashion styling and art-direction works for image (Alter-X Debut Capsule Collection 2021), runway (Two Point Two SS20/21), and music single artworks for Leo Kalyan and NEO10Y. Recent features include Verve India March 2021, GQ India August 2020 Issue, and TATE gallery (online).
Education:
BA (Hons) Photography-University of the Arts London, 2014-2017
Practice Development:
Hinduism Through Its Scriptures-Harvard University via HarvardX, 2020
Shows:
2023 “Loops made 2 hold us//Take care 2 gather.wav”, Group Show, Metroland Cultures, London, UK
2022 “Is This Hope”, Kato Wong Gallery, Digital Exhibition, International (Online). Curated by Rodrigo Chaveiro.
2022 Ayurvedic Lucidity as part of “Art on Loop”, Group Show, Gallery and Digital Public Installation (160 Screens in London), Holy Art, London, UK
2021 “Turbine Bagh” produced by Sofia Karim, Group Show as part of Jameel Art Prize, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK
2020 Tate Collective 2.0. Group Show, Public Installation, Seven Sisters, London, UK
2017 “Kind Of”, University of the Arts London (LCC) Photography Degree Show, Well Gallery, London, UK
Contributions & Collaborations:
2021 “Turbine Bagh” produced by Sofia Karim, Group Show, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK
Awards & Residencies:
2022 Peer-to-Peer Metroland Cultures, London UK July 2022-Jan 2023
Press:
GUAP MAGAZINE-SEPTEMBER 2021 ONLINE ARTIST INTERVIEW ARTICLE
VERVE INDIA-MARCH 2021 ONLINE INTERVIEW FEATURE
GQ INDIA-AUGUST 2020 PRINT AND ONLINE FEATURE
TATE GALLERY-AUGUST 2020 ONLINE FEATURE
Recent Projects and Collaborations:
2021 Alter-X “EUPHORIA” Debut Capsule Collection 2021. Co-Art Direction and Styling. Dehli, India
2020 Two Point two “The Self” 2020 London Fashion Week runway debut. Production, Art Direction, and Assistant Stylist. London, UK
Contact:
Email: nilikkhimani@gmail.com Instagram: @nilikkhimani