About

Bio

 Niki Watts is a Cree artist from rural Bella Coola, British Columbia. Watts’ remote upbringing and her Plains Cree heritage continues to inspire her work. Being born and raised in a rural community she developed a close connection to nature and wildlife. Niki has done wildlife rehabilitation with some of the injured or orphaned wildlife in her valley; the most memorable of her patients a Northern Saw-Whet owlet named Odette who was successfully released back into the wild.

Watts uses traditional mediums to create her illustrative works and she often uses mixed media techniques with her drawings and paintings. She is constantly experimenting with new mediums and techniques in hopes of bettering herself as an artist.

Watts has displayed work at the prestigious National Art Gallery of Canada in Ottawa and was in the top three in an art contest open to youth artists across Canada. In 2017 she was selected for the prestigious Hnatshyn Foundation’s REVEAL Indigenous Art Award. Watts graduated with a Bachelors degree at Emily Carr University of Art & Design and is excited for the challenges and opportunities that come with being a visual artist. She believes that art can be a catalyst for change and can be a voice for issues that need to be heard. Watts hopes to keep creating art and expressing herself with art for many years to come.

Artist Statement

I grew up in a remote wilderness community on the central coast of British Columbia. Bella Coola is six hours from the nearest city and is the home to the Nuxalk people, the traditional custodians of the land. Bella Coola has a population of less than 2500.  Without shopping malls, movie theatres and other city distractions my youth was focused on exploring the wilderness and contributing to the subsistence rural lifestyle. With limited things to do for entertainment in a small community, I used my time to develop my skills as an artist from a young age.

My father is an artist and my mother does traditional Plains Cree arts and crafts. My creative upbringing has instilled in me love for good drawing, design and composition. Now as an artist I gravitate towards representational realism in my themes of wildlife and portraiture. My favorite medium is pencil. I am fascinated by the fact that people can create beautiful works of art with simple implements such as a pencil and paper. I work in wide array of mediums and art forms including drawing, painting, paper cutting, collage, and felting. I have also done photography and videography.  

Back home in Bella Coola, I was the little girl that everyone knew in my community who would save stray animals and rescue injured wildlife. I formed an interest in conservation and I knew I also wanted to include my passion for the conservation of wildlife into my works. My illustrations and mixed media pieces often have merging figures of animals or people, its important to me to include wildlife in my art since we share the land with them.