Nike Arnold is a German – Venezuelan artist and filmmaker. From 2001 to 2002, she studied photography at the Centro Manuel Alvarez Bravo and the Centro de la Imagen in Mexico. Since 2004 she studied Fine Art in the classes of Katharina Sieverding. She completed her master studies with Hito Steyerl in the summer of 2011. In March 2012, she was granted a DAAD postgraduate scholarship to study film direction at the Escuela de Cine y Televisión in Caracas, Venezuela. Since 2015 she is part of the Goldrausch Künstlerinnen.
I work with various photography, video and film formats, as well as with text and sound. I also often use the juxtaposition of image and text to blur the borders between reality and imagination. My artistic interest focuses on the portrayal of people and places over a longer period of time. The subjective examination of the person or the place should be recognisable in my work. It reflects the process of approach and documents the change in the relationship between the subject and the object. While examining over a longer period of time, the specific structures that distinguish a place, or a person, become visible.In my portraits of people, I question concepts of identity, illustrate people’s attachment to their social environment and the fragility and inconstancy of self-images. On the other hand, the portraits are not about making another person visible, but rather about describing the relationship between the portrayed and the portrayer, between observing, and being observed. My working process therefore often involves creating a concept in advance: the period over which I will visit a person or place and the duration of the film are determined from the outset. My process-oriented work method is thus markedly different from that of the individual portrait, in that it includes the contexts of its development. The process of creating the work, and the observations, research and method of telling and documenting the story are the starting material, which later lead to the end result through arranging, combining and adding – or omitting.
2012 – 2014
Studies of Film at Escuela de Cine y TV, Caracas
2010 – 2012
Master of Public Policy, Humboldt-Viadrina School of Governance, Berlin
2011
»Meisterschüler« bei Prof. Hito Steyerl, Berlin University of the Arts
2004 – 2010
Studies of Fine Art, Berlin University of the Arts
2007
Studies of Fine Art at University of Fine Art, Lissabon
2002 – 2003
Studies of Photography, Centro de la Imagen, Mexico City
Studies of Photography, Centro de Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Oaxaca
