The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum

Artist Interview: Nickola Pottinger and Amy Smith-Stewart, Diana Bowes Chief Curator

This exhibition marks the artist’s solo museum debut. It will unveil a new body of work made specifically for the show. It will be accompanied by Pottinger’s first museum publication with an essay by the curator. This exhibition is curated by Amy Smith-Stewart, Diana Bowes Chief Curator.

Nickola Pottinger: fos born will be on view June 8, 2025 to January 11, 2026.

Artist Interview: Nickola Pottinger and Amy Smith-Stewart

AS When did you know you wanted to be an artist?

NP I knew from a very young age. I used to go to work with my dad, he was a graphic designer at the time, and I so admired his drawings. He used to do these ink portraits in pointillism, and I recall the day saying to him I want to draw just like you. I had pursued the arts in my childhood thanks to my parents. They encouraged and immersed me in various art classes and dance classes and nurtured my interests.

AS Did your background in dance and curation impact your direction into visual art?

NP I had studied dance in my earlier years in junior high school, and some high school and I have continued to keep it in my studio ritual. I believe that movement can induce different energy realms.

AS Your work is informed by ancestry, biography, mystery and spirituality. Can you talk about some of your inspirations and how they influence the characters and storylines you develop in your work?

NP I have been quite fortunate to make work that rings true from a past life organically and although sometimes I go into making a work with a particular intention, I am always learning through the process and through spontaneity and trusting that process. There’s a vulnerability to this higher force—higher than myself—that I succumb to. Oftentimes as I’m creating it’s not until the final stages that I find revelation. I am unveiling truths that I hadn’t known were there or had not remembered.

AS Your sculptures and reliefs are composed out of recycled paper, pigmented, painted, and adorned with symbolic objects that often feature casts of your own body. Can you describe your process, where your materials come from, how they find their way into the work, and what kind of magic you wish them to resonate?

NP I believe in spirits and forces, and I think where things originate from are important in my work. Collected papers and documents come from my families’ homes. They come from the hands of those closest to me. It is from that view, this very powerful spiritual element, I hope to convey in the work and for the work to admit to, once it’s completed. It’s almost like handing down stories by mouth and by hand, and in a way, it is a collaboration with my family members because their hands have touched and have lived with these materials. Beyond the paper that I am upcycling, there are objects too. Pieces that I collect overtime from the Caribbean or from my home that eventually make their way into the sculptures and the reliefs. The intention and the origin of these materials reinforce the intentions of my work.

AS You refer to your sculptures as "duppies" - Jamaican patois for ghosts. Can you tell us why you cast them as specters? Are they ghosts of people close to you, novelized, or a mixture of both?

NP I truly believe each work inhabits a spirit. When I’m making each work individually, I am channeling a realm from which they become. It varies; sometimes they are past family members or fictional characters from folklore but also often they are the amalgamation of memories that become their own. This is why I refer to some as inhabiting the past, present, and future. So, each can reside within a split spectrum of time. I am often just a vehicle for what is to come, but I deeply believe that.