Nike Savvas

Celebrating Savvas's exhibition Amathous at ARC ONE Gallery, Melbourne, we're pleased to share Paul Flynn's interview with the artist from our print archive.

There was a day in the fourth grade that the first Apple II series computer arrived at our school. With hindsight, the functions were comical but as we sat dumbfounded at the speed with which it could add and subtract, a fundamental shift was underway in education—wooden counting rods were out and high school math would no longer be taught using the crafty construction of algebraic formulas with wool, nails and board. The sliding ladder equation (or x2/3 + y2/3 = L2/3 for those who didn’t pay attention) that had unwittingly fostered some very lowbrow geometric string art was now to become a series of blips on a microchip. The change was not anything that a tech-hungry kid would give a toss about but, as the unfolding of time would have it, decades later, it would spark the curious imagination of Nike Savvas in her London studio. After beginning her creative career in painting, Nike (pronouned Ni-ki) Savvas is now one of Australia’s best-known installation artists – even though she hasn’t lived here permanently for several years, basing herself in London and travelling the world seeking out inspiration. After showing to acclaim in Australasia, the UK (where she studied at Goldsmiths College) and Europe for several years, she gained widespread attention in her home country for her installation Atomic: Full of Love, Full of Wonder, which was exhibited in major public galleries in Sydney and Melbourne. This April, she is back in Sydney to install an exhibition at BREENSPACE – Sliding Ladder – which will involve a series of wool and wood constructions taking over the gallery space like a giant pre-digital algebra class – only more colourful and, as the artist says, much more accessible.

Your background is Greek-Cypriot, you grew up and studied in Australia then moved to London in 1996 on scholarship and have based yourself there ever since – with stints in Cyprus and trips back to Australia. What have you gained from this globetrotting? Do you feel there is anything you lose through this kind of migration? Does it affect your creative output?
I move around a lot with stints in London, Cyprus and Australia. I have a large studio in Canberra where I grew up and I make a lot of my larger work there. The size of the studio is much more generous than anything I could realistically hope for in London. I divide my time according to whatever projects I have on. I’ll be spending a few months in Rio this year so there’s really no fixed routine regarding my movements. Each context comes with its own set of virtues and collectively offers a wealth of creative potential. This can be a little disorientating at first, but a lot more fun. My work is born from the different experiences of art and life.

What are you doing in Brazil?
I’m hanging out in Rio on a research trip for my work.

Your work started in painting and since has included sculptural installation, light installation, and freestanding sculpture. It seems you’re trying to resist being categorised and use materials in unusual combinations – is this deliberate or are there links to be made between your works?
All of my studies majored in painting – first Sydney College of the Arts and then an MFA through COFA – but even at that time, I always sought to work outside of the canvas. I have an aversion to categorisations and prefer to see art as more fluid, open and malleable — where everything is up for grabs. I like the possibility of creating a brand new animal.

When you showed Atomic: Full of Love, Full of Wonder, 2005, at ACCA and AGNSW, it really grabbed the public imagination as a “brand new animal” – it was just as interesting to take a few steps back and watch the audience’s reaction to the spectacle of 100,000 bright coloured balls vibrating in that massive space. But it also impressed curators and writers who drew links to pointillism, abstract expressionism, op art, Indigenous painting and so on. One curator said it managed to straddle “Zen and disco.” It must be satisfying for you to have not only created a work that had some intellectual grit but also a show that was just gratifying to look at, whether you know anything about art or not. Are you conscious of the historical and contemporary connections that an audience might make?
Although there are multiple ways to engage my work most viewers, in the first instance, seem to respond to it on an experiential level. It is important to me that a broad audience is able to access my work on their own terms, I just don’t want to make art for the art elite alone.

It wasn’t a conscious decision on my part to be an artist, it was just something that I found myself compelled to do – it’s my calling. I’m very aware of the historical and contemporary machinations of the arts industry that can lead to disillusionment.

What sort of disillusionment?
You know what I mean; you start to know what [the arts industry] looks like when you start peeling away at the layers … it can be difficult reconciling this reality with my own creative drives. Having said this, art also has its virtues and its joys, and these are also good things to be aware of.

And you’ve made a number of works for commercial settings: the permanent installation Cascade, 2005, in the Sydney offices of Deutsche Bank – hundreds of mirrored aluminium discs filling an internal stairwell like a waterfall of coins; you have also made a work that sat in a window display for Selfridges in London. Is it a different experience making a work for  a high-traffic business setting – as opposed to a gallery environment?
It is a lot of fun working outside of the sterile cube. Public Art has to be site specific, which means taking into account the public context the work will find itself in, in terms of who the main audience will be and the physical environment it is made for. I get a real kick from engaging people who normally might not set foot in an art gallery.

Can you tell us about the upcoming project for BREENSPACE in Sydney? I understand there will be an installation with coloured woven wool filling one entire gallery space – then a series of small geometric sculptures. Replacing the dot of Atomic or the light of Anthem, 2000, with a coloured line opens up the possibility of your installation becoming like an expansive, three-dimensional drawing. What inspired you to create this new work? Is there anything you’d like your audience to know about it?
My exhibition for BREENSPACE is called Sliding Ladder and is drawn from a variety of sources – primary school algebra and geometry, Bridget Riley and op art generally, sun gazing, painting in the expanded field, altered states, internal worlds, Rio’s Favelas, craft, landscape, colour theory, minimal art, mysticism, the cosmic, architectural space – so again, all a bit Zen and disco.

I have wanted to experiment with the stripe in place of the spot for many years now and have been living with this idea while simultaneously working on other bodies of work. I used the stripe as a follow on from the spot with my suspended mirror works in the 90s and it seemed to make sense. I then tried experiments with wool but at the time the results were unsatisfactory. I only started giving it my full attention a little over a year ago and have come up with new work that I now feel really good about.

Where does the name Sliding Ladder come from?
The Sliding Ladder is the equation: x2/3 + y2/3 = L2/3. My introduction to algebra in primary school involved making the Sliding Ladder curve with string wound around an L shaped row of nails hammered into a velvet covered wooden board. You can probably picture what I mean. I think we’ve all made one at some point.

So how do you get started on a new project like this?
Confinement plays a big part in my day-to-day routine when I get serious about resolving an idea. I tend to isolate myself for  a period of days, read, watch movies, listen to music, take long baths, dream loads, brainstorm, pose questions, seek answers, write, imagine, and temporarily lose myself, so to speak, in a state of “flow.” Always, on or about the fourth day, I’ll wake up in my sleep at some crazy hour (in this case 4:30 a.m.) with images of completed work in my head. My subconscious effectively goes into overdrive and comes up with the visual solutions to conceptual or theoretical propositions. I like to view this as a kind of think-tank hothouse that accelerates my working processes.

So can you tell us what movies and music were in the hothouse for Sliding Ladder?
That was long ago. I really just needed to be totally immersed in something that would get my imagination going.

What was behind the choice of wool?
Wool is warm, soft, furry, crafty and lowbrow. . . It suits the basic look of the pine structures and adds to the overall aesthetic of the piece.

Given that the final work is an installation on the other side of the world and is months away from that initial process of dreaming, how do you capture those moments of inspiration? Do you sketch?
Completing a new installation from its point of conception is an ongoing process of research and negotiation and it doesn’t stop after the initial images pop into my head. It can take a minimum of a year to fully realise a new work and to understand its greater potential and the complexities this brings.

I often experiment with maquettes and drawings, play with colour samples, and continue to research materials and forms. The processes I described in the hothouse continue to feed the work as it grows. In this sense the processes tend to become a more tangible part of the work. I’m always on the lookout for anything that might relate to and inform what I’m doing, so I suppose the dreaming not only continues but also becomes part of where I am at, at the time. My research often includes sourcing the right specialists and assistants to help realise the work. It’s always the best buzz when I’ve finalised the team for the next project and the energy and enthusiasm gets cranked up. Some of my most memorable and meaningful experiences have come from working with the team. I’ve been fortunate enough to work with the most amazing people in my time. To answer your question though: it’s an ongoing process with many variables and considerations that offer new platforms of inspiration with every stage. The work is never fully realised until the show is up so there is plenty of fun to be had along the way.

This article was originally published in Artist Profile, Issue 10, 2010.

EXHIBITION 
Amathous
19 October – 26 November 2022
ARC ONE Gallery, Melbourne