Artist Statement

I am a gay, mixed race woman who has PTSD. Each day involves sorting through emotions, feelings, and memories my body carries with me from my childhood and young adult life. I am slowly confronting and releasing the hurts I carry with me and learning to heal both my mind and body. Cutting woodblocks and hiking in the woods of the Pacific Northwest are soothing and healing processes I use to reconnect my mind and body. Coast Salish ocean, trees, rocks, and dirt are much older than my own hurts I carry with me. Being in these physical spaces grounds me, shapes my perspective, and helps release some of the pressure on the invisible memories my body is tense with.  

Printed like tattoos on skin, symbols that represent my mixed race heritage, stories from my childhood, the Pacific Northwest, and Queer Culture, cover my hand-pulled woodblock prints. With this storytelling, I seek to remove the passive acceptance of accessible exoticism and redefine being a mixed race woman who is white-adjacent. I seek to widen the viewfinder for others to include my life’s intersections of gender, race, and sexuality. 

Bio

Nikki Jabbora - Barber (she/her), a gay Seattle-based printmaker and teaching artist, was born in Bellingham, WA to a Lebanese-German mother and Anglo-Swedish father. Her work focuses on her mixed race identity, centuries of storytelling, and womanhood through symbolic depictions of herself, flora, and fauna.

Nikki regularly leads community engagement projects, including with the Seattle Art Museum, Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, and Seattle Print Arts. Nikki balances making and selling her hand-pulled fine art prints; photographing works on paper for Davidson Galleries; and teaching community art classes in Seattle, WA.

CV

Link to artist CV here.