***Photography****: Nabila Wirakusumah*
***Creative Direction & Production:*** *Bianca Jean-Pierre & Nabila Wirakusumah*

I first stumbled across Nia Winslow’s work, totally by accident, and there was a piece titled “Secret Keeper” which I couldn’t believe was entirely paper because of the intricacies and detailing of the bobos and barrettes that took me back to my childhood. While digging deeper into her catalog I was shocked to realize her art is entirely collage and paper-based. The level of detail and intention behind her work is so incredibly impressive and even more so once I learned she was self-taught and only started making art in 2019!! Nia’s collages connect the Black and African diaspora by portraying our shared experiences from the seemingly mundane to the more poetic while simultaneously using unique strips of paper to also highlight we are not a monolith and to honor our diverse range of cultures.

Ahead of exhibiting her work at the upcoming Affordable Art Fair this month, SHEER had the pleasure of chatting with Nia and learning more about her art journey and the challenges of being a self-taught artist and a black woman navigating the fine art world. Nia is creating her own rules outside of the conventions of the industry with such poise and grace while blazing a trail for other emerging artists to feel empowered to do the same.

Nia Winslow interviewed below by Bianca Jean-Pierre

Bianca: I want to start by saying that I think it's so impressive that you are self-taught. At what point did you start dabbling in being an artist and what was that experience like for you?

Nia Winslow: First of all, thank you so much. I started making art almost six years ago at this point and I started creating after a breakup. I feel like every great story and coming into your own starts like this. I made a piece for my friend’s birthday. It was very elementary but I made him a collage and he loved it. He thought it was really, really good. I did it because I needed some sort of creative outlet. I showed pictures of the piece to my friends and family and they all thought it was really great. So I just continued to create and buy magazines and construction paper and dabble with it when I got home from work or on the weekends.

Bianca: What made you choose collaging and paper?

Nia: It was heavily influenced by the inspiration that I got from artists that I was exposed to when I was growing up. My mom is an art collector. She loves art and exposed my brother and I to so many opportunities for us to be creative and witness other people's creativity. Romare Bearden is a huge inspiration of mine, and I would not have known about him, if it weren't for my mother. Faith Ringgold is really inspirational to me and Jacob Lawrence. But Romare Bearden is the one that I tried to experiment with his techniques. Paper was just the easiest way for me to express myself and manipulate a tangible material to express myself. I don't think I'm good at painting and I'm not that great at drawing.

Bianca: I love the sustainability piece of this because even hearing your process of stumbling into making art, it makes sense to grab for what's most accessible.

Nia: Yeah, exactly. I was thinking of things to create with and I already had magazines and I already had paper. So very much just repurposing things that I already have.

Bianca: I used to love collaging growing up and I feel like it's an art form that doesn’t get enough love or appreciation in fine art spaces. There’s just so much you can do with paper.

We'll get to where you are now as an artist, but I'm curious about your upbringing and your mom being an art collector. Did your mom ever encourage you to create as a kid? Or was it more of just studying art and being around it?

Nia: I think it was more so studying. Of course now my mom is like “Oh yeah, I always believed in your artistic abilities” and she’s supposed to say that, because she’s my parent. But yeah, I remember waking up and looking at the artwork that was in my bedroom and the artwork that was in the living room. As a family, we traveled to a lot of different places and my mom always made it a point to purchase a piece of art from the place that we had traveled to.

I grew up in Washington D.C. and I was born in Atlanta, Georgia, but we moved to Washington, DC, which is where my mom is from, when I was nine years old.

Bianca: Where were some of the places you visited, particularly for art that really stood out to you even as a young person?

Nia: We spent a month in Tanzania, in Dar es Salaam. A really good friend of both my mom and my dad, she actually introduced them, is a professor and she was teaching at the University of Dar es Salaam. She invited us to come visit her and we stayed with her for about three to four weeks just traveling and experiencing the city. I was in sixth grade, so I was like 12.

Bianca: You were a very cool sixth grader.

Nia: I'm super grateful for it. We traveled to Aruba. We've been to Kenya. We went to Zanzibar while we were in Tanzania. We've been to London as a family. So I was a pretty well traveled kid. Even the the Haitian drummer statue you see in my home, my mom literally bought that when she was in Haiti. I’ve inherited so many pieces of artwork from my parents, but my mom specifically, because she was really an art collector. Seeing different pieces and sculptures around me really encouraged me to be creative as a child.

Bianca: Traveling is probably one of the best ways to get inspired. Having that ingrained in you at such a young age is really incredible.

Nia: Very grateful for my mom, and my dad, too, but I think my mom has the eye for art and she likes to support artists. So I definitely got that from her.

“My mom is an art collector. She loves art and exposed my brother and I to so many opportunities for us to be creative and witness other people’s creativity. Romare Bearden is a huge inspiration of mine, and I would not have known about him, if it weren’t for my mother.”

— Nia Winslow

Bianca: Since you really didn't start leaning into making art until a couple years ago, what were you doing in the meantime? And was there ever any thought in your mind that maybe one day you might want to do something creative or be an artist?

Nia: I wouldn't say that I had an interest in being the type of artist that I am now, but I've always been interested in fashion, so I think when I was a teenager, I just loved looking at different clothes and I had taken a sewing class. I loved sketching, although I wasn't very good at it, but I really loved sketching and going through magazines, cutting things out that I thought I would look good in, or just putting different pieces of clothing together to create an outfit. I really enjoy doing that, and I feel like that's one of the reasons I moved to New York, even though I moved to New York to go to graduate school and I wasn't creative at all.

Bianca: And what did you end up studying?

Nia: I have my undergrad degree in Clinical Psychology, and then I moved to New York for grad school, and my graduate degree is in Experimental Psychology. I studied psychology because when I was a freshman in undergrad, my brother was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I was super interested in learning more about ADHD and bipolar disorder, and I fully intended on going to school to get my doctorate.

Bianca: Personally I love studying the brain and psychology and reading about it, even though it's not related to anything that I do professionally. I think, no matter what industry you're in, especially as a creative, it's so important to understand how the mind works.

So were you still then trying to incorporate fashion into your world and did that then open the door into art as well?

Nia: After I created the piece of my friend for his birthday in 2019, I thought this is actually something that I really enjoy doing. I'm not getting paid for it, but I like doing it during my downtime. I love just expressing myself this way.

In late 2019, I hired a photographer and we would go out and shoot two or three outfits that I had put together. From the photo shoot, I would choose a couple of pictures of my different outfits, and create an artistic interpretation of the picture of me. So that's how I got into trying to tie the fashion and collage work together. That’s also how I started my Instagram and my blog, Closet Artistry,. I would post a picture of me on Instagram in an outfit, and then a couple of days later, I would post the artistic interpretation as a collage, which was basically a self portrait. So all of my earlier pieces of really getting into making art are self portraits.

“I think art is so personal and so intimate, and I don’t think I would be comfortable portraying anyone other than people who look like me or people who share the same culture or the same ethnic background.”

— Nia Winslow

Bianca: How did you start leaning into what you wanted to portray in your art outside of yourself? I can see that you cover the Black diaspora and everyday experiences with this emphasis on style and how black culture really does lay the foundation and dictate a lot of what we consider stylish.

Nia: I started off doing self portraiture because at that time, I was really uncomfortable with portraying other people in my collages. I think portraying a different person is such an intimate thing. Once I started getting more comfortable with my artistry and I could see some progression, I started following other creatives on Instagram, like different photographers and fashion influencers and being inspired by the things that they wear and the pictures that they post. Now everything has been monetized, but I think several years ago people were just doing it because they really loved to do it and that really inspired me.

I think art is so personal and so intimate, and I don't think I would be comfortable portraying anyone other than people who look like me or people who share the same culture or the same ethnic background. Obviously being black is not a monolith. There are so many different cultures and ethnic backgrounds, and black people are so different, but that's the beauty of it. I find so much inspiration in the people that I see every single day, and the things that they're wearing and the things that they create, and what they post. Whether it’s being inspired by a hairstyle, or things that I feel are attainable for me because this person looks similar to how I look, or we share an ethnic background, or we're the same race, or we have the same hair texture. That's what I find beautiful and that's why I want to uplift the people who I think are inspiring, and those are people who look like me.

Bianca: And you do it so well. Even just mentioning the hairstyles, which I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge how this really stood out in a recent solo exhibit we had featuring your work at the Selina Chelsea this summer. I intentionally chose the pieces that I felt best reflected that everyday life experience but also attributes, whether it's hairstyles or fashion style that we can attribute to the black diaspora and that a lot of us can relate to, even across cultures. Like you said, we're not a monolith, but there's a lot that we do share.

Now taking a step back and thinking about your practice of collaging, how do you get the details so well? It’s so on point, even down to the hairstyles, and with Secret Keeper, so many people were immediately drawn into the nostalgia of the hair. We all have different names for it, like barrettes, bobos, etc but we all know what it is when we see it. And so many people felt that it reminded them of their childhood. You’re creating these moments that speak to us, but you're doing this with collage, not just painting or drawing, but you're taking individual pieces and putting it together in a way where it still looks so realistic and the message is so clear. Can you share a little bit more about your technique?

Nia: Yeah, honestly, it's something that I don't think I can explain. I think the more I practice and the more I create, It’s just a thought that I would have like, “Oh, well, this may look really good so let me just try this, and if it works, it works. If it doesn't, it doesn't”. I think it's just really drilling down into details and sourcing the paper that I use in these compositions can be kind of tedious, because I'm flipping through pages and pages and pages of magazines to get the exact tones, colors, and patterns that I want. I feel like it's something that I can't explain.

One thing I think stands out is the fact that when I first started collaging, I was literally just cutting paper. I was using scissors to get these really sharp edges and then I graduated into using a different technique. Now I just rip paper. I rarely use scissors.

Bianca: Ah, that's really good to know because I didn’t don't know what your process was but I just see the beautiful outcome. I imagined it was cutting because of the intricacy of the work, like one of your more recent pieces that I got to see in person at the Residency Unlimited group show you were in called Love in Resurrection City, and I was staring at every section and every part of it. It felt so intentional that you would have to literally be cutting each edge. But it's interesting to know that that's not the case.

Nia: So actually, with the Love in Resurrection City I did have pieces that I did use scissors on because I took full images from really vintage magazines, and that was the first time I had done that. But for the full figures that were composed of ripped pieces of paper, I didn't use scissors on any of those figures. So those figures were made of several pieces of ripped paper.

The white edges that you see that outline the figures in my pieces are literally the ripped edge of the paper. I just thought it gave each piece a little bit more depth, and added a different dynamic. It makes the piece a little bit more visually interesting. I don't even know when I started to do that, but when I did, I was like, oh, this is it. It's really cool.

Bianca: And now I can really notice that detail of that white edge which is so much more prominent. I couldn't put my finger on it, but I think that is exactly what makes your pieces really unique and stand out in your style collage. It's just a small detail that makes a huge difference.

Where did you get the vintage magazines from?

Nia: So during my residency with Residency Unlimited, we met with several different art professionals, and we had studio visits where we would sit and talk about our art practice, and they would either provide feedback, or we could ask them any questions. I'm also so hungry for creative progression and education and thinking about what else I can do? Obviously, I love working with paper. I love collaging but of course I would love to elevate my artistry and my practice.

During the residency period, I was explaining a project that I was working on and the photos that I referenced are black and white photos from the mid 1900s. Prior to creating the pieces during the residency period, I was using contemporary magazines that you would get from Target or Michael's and they were recent, so the paper was fresh. But one of the studio visits was so enlightening because I met with another artist who suggested that I really think about the materials that I use and how the materials that I'm using lend to the purpose of the piece. She suggested I use paper from the mid 1900s since I’m referencing photographs from that time period and I was like that's such a great idea. I looked on eBay and a lot of people were selling vintage magazines from the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s so I purchased a bundle of Life magazines and a few copies of National Geographic.

Bianca: I love your resourcefulness. Let’s talk about navigating the art world. I think with every industry, honestly, whether it's art or fashion, there's always that conventional or typical path. As someone who didn't take that path and being an independent artist and a black woman and being self-taught, you're breaking all of the conventions and boxes that are set in place. How has that been for you?

Nia: I'm so appreciative of the journey that I've had, and I'm continuing but it's been tough, honestly. Last year was a really hard year for me. I had applied to so many opportunities, and people look at my CV and they see that I don't have an MFA or that I didn’t have any residency experience. I've been in a few group shows, and I've had wins here and there, for sure, but it's hard. Even building your network and trying to build relationships with other artists in the community is hard because the art world is incredibly elitist.

Bianca: I think in being a self-taught artist, you are doing what's best for you and you have come a long way in a short amount of time. You also have a natural gift that can't be denied. Just seeing the evolution of your work, it's really fascinating, because you can see the progression in skill and technique. And I think that's very much the nature of an artist.

Nia: Yeah it can be a frustrating process, but it's also been very, very rewarding. I've had great opportunities recently and I've met some really great people. I've made some friends, and I am really appreciative of the community that I've been able to foster and cultivate for myself.

I believe in myself so much, and sometimes I don't. We all have those days where it's like, this doesn't look good. I don't even know if I'm qualified. Should I even post this? This isn't good enough. But I think just believing in my creativity, and then, of course I genuinely love creating, and I love getting better, and I love progressing. I love learning more about how I can elevate my creativity and my compositions.

It's been tough as a self taught artist, and a black woman in New York City. It’s a tough city, because there are a lot of people here who are artists, or claim to be artists, and they're going after the same opportunities you are and they may have connections that you don't have. But it’s about self determination and really, really believing in my artistry and my ability to just create greatness. That's what I strive to do. And the fact that I really, really love doing this shit.

“When I first started collaging, I was literally just cutting paper. I was using scissors to get these really sharp edges and then I graduated into using a different technique. Now I just rip paper. I rarely use scissors.”

— Nia Winslow

Bianca: I think those two things you said about unrelenting belief in yourself and loving what you do are really everything. Without those two things, I think it's incredibly difficult in any creative field or industry, especially as people of color. SHEER is honored to be working with you and I'm so glad that we've seen your work and got to know you, because you're really such a great talent. I think a lot of times when people say that you need to have these credentials, and I respect the credentials of course, but I think there has to be a version of the art world that’s more democratized and accessible for people. I think sometimes a lot of those markers of success and goal posts are created as a way of filtering people out who are often very much deserving. I think there is a world where you can have a natural gift and drive for art and still be wildly successful.

Nia: I just want to say that this has been such a fruitful relationship and I'm so appreciative of the support, and the motivation that you provide. It's been such a pleasure working with you and SHEER. I just love the purpose of SHEER, and I think it's been one of the best relationships that I've made throughout this art journey.

Bianca: Oh wow, thank you so much. It's like the least we could do. Similar to you, this is something I kind of stumbled into. I feel like sometimes we're created to push boundaries and knock down conventions. And like you said, sometimes it's hard, right, where you're like, “What am I doing? Is this even good enough? Does this even make sense?” But I think those are the moments where you have to really keep going. I'm grateful for you and the artists I've met. I want to help more, as best as I can, while we all navigate these murky waters together.

As you're continuing your art journey, what keeps you grounded?

Nia: I think life in general, grounds me and my relationships. I'm just living life and still trying to figure everything out. And of course, you enter this world that's incredibly elitist, and it’s about who you know and may not necessarily be about the quality of your creativity or your artistry, but I think that that's just the culture of New York City sometimes. I ground myself with my friends who celebrate me and they're so encouraging. They gas me a lot.

“I believe in myself so much, and sometimes I don’t. We all have those days where it’s like, this doesn’t look good. I don’t even know if I’m qualified. Should I even post this? This isn’t good enough. But I think just believing in my creativity, and then, of course I genuinely love creating, and I love getting better, and I love progressing. I love learning more about how I can elevate my creativity and my compositions.”

— Nia Winslow

Bianca: And we all need that extra push so I love that. I also want to acknowledge too, that you will be one of our exhibiting artists at the Affordable Art Fair NYC Fall edition this month. We're so excited to have you. And is this your first art fair?

Nia: It is. I'm really excited. I don't think we were acquainted when you guys did the same art fair in the Spring but I saw what you guys did at the Hamptons Fine Art Fair. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to go, but saw the reception and the connections you all were able to create. Yeah, I'm excited.

Bianca: I'm excited for you too and it's going to be a great time. One of the pieces, the featured piece of yours at the fair is Muvah. What inspired that piece? It’s gorgeous.

Nia: I have so many pieces with mothers, but that was the first mother piece. I was literally just scrolling on Instagram and I saw this old photograph of this mother and she was cradling her baby. Anytime I see pictures of black mothers and children, I'm always reminded of the relationship that I have with my own mother and how I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now if it weren't for my mother. I'm always inspired by feelings that I get from things that I see. So I created the piece and it was the biggest piece I had ever created at the time. It’s also reminiscent of the Madonna.

Bianca: Yeah that’s been reinterpreted in so many ways so I love that it's your interpretation based on your art style.

Nia: It was like a queen holding her and I thought, oh this is me and my mom. So yeah, I created it, and I love it. It's one of my favorite pieces. I think it's like one of my most captivating pieces. Yeah, I just love it.

Bianca: It's stunning, for sure. What would you say that you're most looking forward to in your art practice? What would the future of your art journey look like to you?

Nia: I'm really excited about incorporating new techniques into my practice. I want to experiment with different materials and incorporate fabric. At some point I would love to experiment with screen printing and layering different materials. I would also love to experiment with different weights of paper and take a paper making class.

“. Anytime I see pictures of black mothers and children, I’m always reminded of the relationship that I have with my own mother and how I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing now if it weren’t for my mother.”

— Nia Winslow

Bianca: Oh, very interesting.

Nia: When I was younger, I took a paper making class and it was really interesting. The paper I made was very delicate but still pretty durable. I definitely want to experiment with handmade paper but possibly create my own paper.

Bianca: Wow, that’s being even more resourceful. Love that. You mentioned fabric and that's something that I've also noticed a lot from the NY Armory Show last weekend. Fabrics were everywhere. What kind of fabrics do you think you would want to play with? Would you go the vintage route or use new fabrics?

Nia: That's a good question. I'd probably experiment with vintage fabric and go to the Salvation Army to pick up older clothes. I would feel more comfortable ripping that material as opposed to buying fresh fabric, thinking about sustainability.

Bianca: I love that. I think it ties in nicely with the theme of your more recent works having the material reference the subject matter. I'm really excited for the relationship we've been building and also this fair!

Nia: This was great. Thank you so much. I can't wait to see everything come together at the fair and the other artists who are so incredible. I can't wait to see their work as well.