Artist Profile

Maree Nikimaya (b. 2001) is a South Sudanese Australian artist born and raised in Lutruwita/Tasmania and currently studying Fine Arts at RMIT University in Naarm/Melbourne. Working across portraiture, abstraction, and figurative painting, her practice draws on the rich cultural history of her South Sudanese heritage while engaging with surrealism and Afro-surreal aesthetics. Through layered, symbolic imagery, Nikimaya explores the complexities of identity, memory, and the multidimensional experiences of Black women in the diaspora. Influenced by Black horror and speculative narratives, her work challenges monolithic representations of Black identity, creating evocative visual worlds that examine resilience, cultural inheritance, and the surreal intersections of personal and collective experience.