I’m Nikke Naeme
and I explore what lies beneath the surface — in people, in behaviour, in images, in sound. I make visual work and music that search for what’s hidden: under skin, under silence, under what people show each other.
Before becoming a full-time artist in 2021, I worked with children who couldn’t live at home. That background in mental health still echoes in my work — in its themes, its fragility, and its urge to connect.
I’m drawn to mortality, decay, and the question of how to live with existence. My work explores existential themes through psychology, philosophy, and how people relate — to themselves and to each other. I often use mirrored figures, prompting questions like: Is this how others see me? Or how I see myself?
The Work
My work is rooted in expression — raw, physical, immediate. I care more about gesture than design, more about instinct than concept. There’s often a cartoon-like edge: reduced forms, direct lines, always intentional.
My process is intuitive, then reflective. The image often comes first. Meaning, if it arrives, comes later.
There’s a tension in many of the figures I paint — a kind of silence, a sense of something withheld. Titles may echo that, or disrupt it. They don’t explain; they shift the weight. I’m not just interested in offering perspective, but in throwing the viewer off balance.
I use whatever feels urgent: acrylics, ink, palette knives, tape, photocopies. The only rule is that the outcome must remain unfamiliar to me until the very end.
If I’m not surprised, maybe you won’t be either.