Abstract Painting series Donated to a Sober Living Home
This piece is titled “Strength” it was made with Acrylic paint on an 11x14 Canvas
Introduction
This is a series of paintings I was recently commissioned to do for someone who is donating them to a sobriety house for women. It's been a really special project to me for a couple reasons. One being that my family, as with a lot of families in this country, have quite a bit of substance abuse issues and to say that it's had an impact on my life doesn't feel like doing the situation justice. That's to say it's been incredibly formative. The other being that this is the first time I've been commissioned by a complete stranger, like no references or anything. SO that's really exciting, thankfully I've had a lot of positive turn arounds in the past few months and I've been able to really focus on some artistic endeavors, which has been very rewarding for me. As always I'm excited for you all to see what's coming down the pipeline and as always thanks so much for the support along the way. ⠀
this piece is titled “Freedom” - Acrylic on an 8x10 Canvas
and lastly “Connection” - Acrylic on a 6x8 canvas
BehinD the Scenes…
So I have been painting for my whole life. I can still remember asking my grandmother to pull out the cheap plastic pallet of water colors almost every time she had to watch me as a kid. After that I remember trying to mix a custom color into a paint marker I had probably stolen from Walmart as a micheviuous youth (sorry grandma) and then spilling that teal paint all over her driveway. Then throughout my schooling I had a lot of art classes and they were always my favorite part of the day. In particular my painting class senior year of high school. It was a refuge for me from everything else I had going on during my last year of high school, and trust me, there was a lot going on. I imagine most people feel that way about their senior year. Anyways, it was always a place I could go to see friends and shoot the shit with my favorite teacher, Mrs. Faneras (hope I spelled that right). I learned so much in that class about art history, composition, technique, and different disciplines of painting. The learning I did in that class spurred me to learn more about those topics on my own and having that baseline understanding really helped me move forward as an artist, I’d say I’m still seeing benefits of it to this day!
Aside from how great art class was, I did have some very real emotional stresses in my life at the time. While I was still living with my folks, my parents drinking always had a very directly negative impact on my life. It started with my stepfather who works nights as an aircraft mechanic. That on top of being “a strong emotionless man” leads to a certain twisted understandability to his choices of profuse drinking. Not so long before I started high school my mother was robbed at gunpoint for the second time, leaving her scarred and eventually leading to a PTSD diagnosis. The medicine she was on only helped for so long and eventually she also fell down the rabbit hole of alcoholism. Of course this feels like a lot to drop out of the blue, but it also felt that way to 16 year old me. I imagine all of this volatility at home lead to some of the not so great choices I made throughout that time.
I mention my step father so casually because my dad was never really around during that time, save for maybe a week out of a year. He spent most of my childhood and teen years in Florida. We would talk over the phone but that’s about the extent of our relationship at that time. My parents divorced when I was very young, and for reasons I wasn’t allowed to know for a long time after. I was drip fed the story as I grew up and eventually came to find out that my father was addicted to pain-killers among many other things. I’d say finding this out rattled my world more so than much else since. As a kid my only outlet for these feelings was organized sports and anger. Thankfully youth football exists in America.
All of this is to say that substance abuse is structural to who I am today. It’s an ever present aspect of my life, and always will be. None of this gets into my own substance use whether or not you’d describe them as issues or not probably depends a lot on your own personal lifestyle, but I digress. I’m not addicted to any substances currently, and in way I’m somewhat thankful for the terrible examples my parents set. One thing I always knew, is that I didn’t want to end up like that. I hope the best for everyone who looks at these painting while they’re working through their process. Take care of yourselves, and talk soon.
-Niko