Vicki Salmi

My practice is an exploration and manifestation of a mind in perpetual motion and information overload, projected into intuitive and reactive mark-making and layers, through multiple works that feed into one another in a variety of mediums, working in large-scale and compacted painting, collage, printing, stitch, film and book art

It reflects the interconnectedness of, and polarising dual states of, impulse and control. The cycle of repetition from one to the other creates space for possibilities, for the inception of visual indexing where my AuDHD focus drives the accumulation, intensity, and non-linear logic of the work—foregrounding process over resolution and embracing ambiguity as a valid and generative state.

I spent most of my adult life working the 9-to-5 as an admin clerk, feeling constrained, out of place and stuck. A perfect storm of circumstances led me to an outreach course for those without a formal education in the arts, which coincided with a serious illness and major operation, menopause, and leaving my job to study Fine Art just as Covid hit. I graduated six years later at the age of 56 with an Access to Higher Education in Fashion and Textiles, a BA First Class Honours in Fine Art, and an MA with distinction, supported by a partial scholarship and a diagnosis of AuDHD and burnout, which I am now coming to terms with. There is an urgency to this that informs my work, driven by the years lost to put together the building blocks that many others have worked on over time or had from the start, and by my neurodivergent traits.

During this time, and despite these obstacles, I worked hard to start a professional practice and have participated in many selected group shows, including Outside In’s National Open, ‘Shelter’, which toured from New Art Gallery Walsall to Christie’s in London. I was awarded a DYCP grant from ACE for my project ‘Everything All at Once: Sublimating a Neurodivergent Aesthetic’ and have contributed a chapter entitled ‘Towards A Neurodivergent Aesthetic’ for the forthcoming Routledge International Handbook for Disability Research and Enquiry.