Niki Keenan

One of the few street-facing installations at Cannonball, our Third Avenue Storefront is designed to host art installations as window displays. This 12’ x 12’ space is visible to both visitors and pedestrians and will rotate seasonally, much like the department store window displays it takes inspiration from.

Niki’s painted sculptures use imagery of her home: forests, waterways, gardens, underwater creatures and stellar nurseries. Nurse Log reflects on the intelligence inherent in our forests. It explores the phenomena of a nurse log where a tree falls and a new tree grows, using its nutrients. The nurse log decays leaving a void in the surrounding root system for light to find its way. This window effect is found in delicate canvas and gauze as they weave together a moment that could feel fleeting or a moment that has limitless possibility. The lightness of the material, see-through in some areas, allows the viewer to imagine floating through the scene themselves, through the void of the nurse log, connected to nebula above. Nurse Log is a diptych, one part rests on the floor, the other is suspended. The above/below orientation reflects her interest in connection and the present moment.