Madeleine Niggemann

About
Madeleine Niggemann currently lives and works in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. She is a student at Mount Mary University working towards her BA majoring in studio art and minoring in history. She will be graduating in December 2020. She has exhibited her work at Mount Mary University. Her longstanding interests in art and history influence what she creates in her work. She focuses on how these two disciplines relate to one another, especially history’s relation to personal experience and how this can be expressed through art. During her time in school she has learned to appreciate and use many mediums that extend beyond just drawing and painting which she has favored in the past. Niggemann continues to make work that expresses her passions in a variety of ways.

Statement
My work focuses around the human figure and natural imagery. With figures I specifically reference historical photographs. By abstracting these photos, my work becomes more about the specificity of detail in a memory rather than a literal retelling of the moment as a whole. When combining this with natural forms, my work speaks to memorialization of the past and connections between humans and the rest of nature.

For my process I typically begin by searching through archival photographs for figures that stand out to me due to their expressions or the environments they are situated in. My depictions of nature are inspired by my own experiences and associations with these things. My primary medium is acrylic and graphite. However, I will occasionally use other mediums as well.