KIKI ULTAN “OMO POEMS”
ARTIST STATEMENT:
Out of necessity Kiki learned to paint. Like Harold and the purple crayon she has had to paint herself some hope. As our precious species teeters on multiple precipices of doom in these times, Kiki found a fountain of beauty and innocence in a series of photographs of The Omo people at an intersection of Sudan, Ethiopia, and Kenya and began her painterly poems depicting these Omo subjects. In winter 2023/24, her apartment had little to no heat as she delicately painted near a hundred of portraits while layered up in full winter gear. This prolific series depicts an equatorial celebration of life and creativity. Kiki is a self-taught artistic outlier. She is also a violist/fiddler and teacher, and performs locally upstate New York with The Creative Improvisers Orchestra under the direction of Peter Apfelbaum. Solo she has raised two beautiful creative daughters on a wing and a prayer.
In 2018, 15 of her painterly portraits of American Poets was purchased for the Poetry in America Office at Harvard University. “Empire: an Infestation”, her show of 200 tiny portraits, was hung at the University of The Minnesota Architectural Library from October 2019- September 2020.
FRIDAY OCTOBER 4 to NOVEMBER 4, 2024*
LOCATION: 39A Tinker St. Woodstock, NY