Niah McGiff/ Figurative Art

Within her practice, Niah McGiff gravitates toward the subconscious and the alchemical nature of painting. While oil paint remains her primary medium, she engages in a multidisciplinary approach that includes printmaking, photography, sculpture, drawing, and poetry - each medium offering a different tactile entry point into the complexities of emotional and psychological life.

In recent years, Niah has delved into psychological and scientific theories surrounding the mind, ffmotion, and the human drive to express. Central to this inquiry is the concept of the explanatory gap - a term coined by philosopher Joseph Levine to describe the limitations of physical theory in accounting for the richness of subjective experience. How does one truly communicate the feeling of candle wax dripping on skin, or the ache of nostalgia? Language often falters in capturing the depth of feeling.

Niah’s work seeks to bridge this divide - to reach across the space between inner experience and outer expression. Through experimental and intuitive processes, she explores how diverse mediums and visual languages might articulate what is otherwise ineffable: the raw, felt reality of being human.

For Niah, the beauty of painting lies in its paradox - in the challenge of giving form to the intangible while surrendering to the material’s own spontaneity. In that space between control and chaos, idea and instinct, something entirely new emerges.