Artist Profile
Donny Nie
Donny Nie (b. 1997) is a Chinese-Canadian interdisciplinary artist. She received an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a BFA from OCAD University. Nie is currently a visiting assistant professor in the College of Visual Arts and Design at University of North Texas.
She has exhibited in Canada, the United States, and China. From large-scale oil painting, monotype, digital projection, to small-scale ceramic and glass form, Nie’s interdisciplinary abstractions coalesce to manifest an intuitive, gestalt experience. Her mediums examine proximity as a visual and metaphorical instrument, to simplify or complicate information over different courses of materialities, and eventually inform each other in the same exhibition space.
CV
EDUCATION
2019-2021 MFA - Fiber and Material Studies, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
2015-2019 BFA - Drawing and Painting & Minor in Illustration, OCAD University
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
2022-2023 Visiting Assistant Professor, Studio Art Department, University of North Texas
2019-2021 Teaching Assistant, Fiber and Material Studies Department, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
2021 Teaching Assistant, Printmedia Department, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2022 Edging, FLXST Contemporary, Chicago, IL
2022 MFA Thesis Exhibition, SAIC Galleries, Chicago, IL
2022 Now Streaming, Visual Arts Mississauga, ON
2022 It's All Right, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, IL
2021 Anonymous Crystal - Solo Exhibition, Guangdou Dow Technology Co., Ltd., Foshan, China
2021 Portraits of Resilience(online), Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, ON
2021 Off The Screen, Propeller Art Gallery, Toronto, ON
2021 A Residue You Find on Your Fingertip, SITE Gallery, Chicago, ON
2021 Virtual Out of Order Exhibition, Maryland Art Place
2020 Off The Screen, Propeller Art Gallery, Toronto, ON
2020 Prism(virtual), Envision Arts
2020 Congruence(virtual), I Like Your Work Podcast
2020 INCUBATOR, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, IL
2020 Abstract Lunch, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, IL
2020 Art Prom, OCAD University, Toronto, ON
2019 CAP-Xhibition, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, IL
2019 OCAD University Artist Showcase, Bloor-Yorkville, Toronto, ON
2019 IDEAL: The World As We Want It, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, IL
2019 Emerging Artist Exhibit, Artusiasm, Toronto, ON
2019 Emerging Now, Bau-xi Gallery, Toronto, ON
2019 Exuberant, Woman's Art Association of Canada, Toronto, ON
2019 104th GradEx Exhibition, OCAD University, Toronto, ON
2019 Toro - A Solo Exhibition, OCAD U Learning Zone, Toronto, ON
2019 The Picture Show, OCAD University, Toronto, ON
2019 Experiencing Perspectives 2018-2019, Mercedes-Benz Financial Services, Mississauga, ON
2018 The Next Big Thing, Living Arts Centre, Mississauga, ON
2018 Hamilton Youth and Emerging Art Fair & Exhibition, Hamilton Arts Council, Hamilton, ON
2018 Awenda Inspired, Ada Slaight Gallery, Toronto, ON
2018 Notes from the Wind, OCAD U Learning Zone, ON
2017 SOMETHING DIFFERENT: 32nd Annual Juried Exhibition, Scarborough Arts, Toronto, ON
2017 A Festivus For The Rest of Us, Northern Contemporary, Toronto, ON
2017 Zine Power: the OCAD U Zine Library 10-Year Anniversary Exhibition, Toronto, ON
COLLECTIONS
Corporate: Macdonald’s(Canada), Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Greenland Minerals(Australia), WonderFi(Canada), Liquid Meta(Canada), Holy Cow!(Canada), Guangdou Dow Technology Co., Ltd.(China), Amcomri Media Group(Canada), Evermore(Canada), DevvStream(Canada), Vida Carbon(Canada).
Private collections in Canada, the United States, China, and Korea.
Artist Statement
Painting is the matrix of my practice, my device to process time in various rhythms: stretch one mark to an animation, or reduce one memory to an impression. My research ponders painting as a virtual identity, a persona with encoded privacy and portals of disclosure. My paintings maintain a rectangular format to construct a framework for my sculptures: my brushstrokes in an immersive space, to break the conventions as a means to violate, exceed, or liberate.
My prints and digital images focus on the exhaustion and exuberance of a two- dimensional imagery, through an accumulative illusion illustrating an overwhelming potential in composition. My sculptures meditate singular gestures, contextualize a brushstroke by projecting it into a three-dimensional capacity. They are aspiring objects suspended between paradoxical states: an abstraction that is a molten physicality, an illusion of ephemerality that crystallizes to pursue permanence.
Via transformation in both optical and chemical states, mystified alchemy of my artwork draws attention onto a sensual experience to exemplify the state of proximity. I am driven by an obsession with transparency as a metaphor to capture the impossibles, the invisibles, the ethereality. The works materialize as a desire to archive, control, and situate within an ever-changing time.