This summer I reviewed the exhibition Innerline which consisted of three recent and concurrent series of process-driven works by Nikki Middlemiss that complement each other and create an environment conducive to reflection and contemplation, further enhanced by the climate-control in the gallery where it was displayed.
Nikki Middlemiss, Remains series, 2024, folded National Geographic magazine pages, glue
Although drawing is central to Middlemiss's practice, you could argue that withdrawing is a more apt verb, given that abstraction and subtraction are typical of her work. In my review, with reference to Marshall McLuhan’s notion of “hot and cool” media, I suggest that Middlemiss’s removals (of a particular material or a referent) engineer a cooling effect and engage the viewer more in actively figuring out the work – the hallmark of McLuhan’s “cool” media. The precarity manifested by the works in Innerline offer a portrait of a civilization in the process of undoing itself through its own making. For the full text of my review check out the July 16 post on the Akimblog.
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