Vikoi’s practice unfolds through bold, colourful acrylic works that use playfulness as a way into more complex questions of identity, neurodivergence, mental health and the structures that shape contemporary life. Born in Somerset and self taught, she creates work rooted in lived experience, exploring what it means to exist in a world that can feel misaligned with the mind and body.
Through toons, robots and fantastical hybrid creatures, Vikoi builds a visual language that sits between the biological and the mechanical. Her figures carry an accessible, animated brightness, yet beneath this surface lies a deeper enquiry into vulnerability, adaptation and the possibility of bodily or technological transformation. Drawing on ideas around transhumanism, she asks whether human limitations might be redesigned, and whether the systems around us, rather than the individual, are what most urgently need to change.
Working with acrylic, pouring paint, spray paint and paint pens, Vikoi’s work uses colour, humour and imaginative form to hold space for discomfort, contradiction and hope. Her paintings reflect the experience of masking, of appearing cheerful while navigating depression, anxiety and ADHD, and of searching for alternative ways of being. In this tension between joy and unease, her practice becomes both personal and speculative, asking how we might reimagine ourselves and the world we are asked to inhabit.
Are you self-taught, or did you undertake formal artistic training?
I am self-taught. Which feels appropriate given that most of what I make is about systems that weren’t built for me. It would be strange to have learned only within one.
How would you define your visual language or conceptual approach?
Bold, colourful, and deceptively playful. I use robots, toons and hybrid creatures as a visual language for things that are hard to say directly such as neurodivergence, mental ill-health, transhumanism, the relationship between humans and the technology we create. The brightness is intentional and mirrors something I know well: the performance of being fine.
Can you describe your creative process from conception to completion?
It usually starts with a feeling or a question I can’t leave alone. The background comes first, fluid acrylic pouring, which is deliberately surrendered to chance. I don’t control it so much as negotiate with it. The organic chaos it produces becomes the world the figures inhabit. Then I paint with acrylics and draw into that world, robots, linework with paint pens. I finish off with some spray varnish to ensure the painting can last the hands of time.
Does narrative, symbolism, or storytelling play a role within your work?
Absolutely. Every piece carries a story, even when it isn’t immediately legible. The robots are never just robots, they are proxies for human experience, for vulnerability, for the question of what it means to function in a world that wasn’t designed with you in mind. The wires that connect them can mean dependency or support depending on how you feel about being tethered to other people. I like that ambiguity, I don’t always want to give you the answer!
Which artists have most influenced you historically or contemporarily and why?
This is a question I’d love to answer more fully on the site, watch this space. But broadly I am drawn to artists who use accessible, even playful visual languages to carry serious weight. Work that doesn’t announce its depth immediately. Work that lets you in before it unsettles you. I love the work Dalek does for the bright colours but the dark undertones. I also love the complexity of Heath Robinson’s engineering and have done since I was a child.
What personal, cultural, or environmental influences shape your practice?
Living with depression, anxiety and ADHD shapes everything. I have also lost a lot of close family members over the last few years so naturally grief has a part to play in my expressions. Being born in Somerset, spending time in Bristol (a city with a fierce and democratic relationship with public art) has been formative. I’ve recently joined the Bristol Mural Collective which has helped push my practice into shared spaces, onto walls, into conversations with people who would never walk into a gallery. That matters to me enormously. Art that only exists for people who already know how to find it has already failed half its potential.
Where is your studio based, and how does the space inform your creativity?
Based in the UK, in the South West in Bristol. This is where I do most of my work. In my home studio for most canvas work but he space shifts as I work across canvas, digital platforms and exterior walls, so the studio is wherever the work demands. That fluidity suits me. I don’t think I’d function well within fixed walls and fixed hours, I love the outdoors and think I would go insane if I had to do all of my art in one place.
Do you have any rituals or rhythms that anchor your studio practice?
Honestly? Chaos, managed badly and occasionally well! The nature of ADHD means that routine is something I reach for and rarely hold. What anchors me is the work itself. Once I’m in it, I’m in it and then I can be lost for hours and sometimes forget to eat! Getting there is the ritual, and it looks different every time!
What bodies of work or projects are you currently developing?
I am developing a body of work exploring AI, the internet and machine intelligence at the moment. What happens to technology when we are no longer here to need it, what happens when it begins to build for itself. Pieces in this series include Aimless, Machines Don’t Get to Rest and the newly completed What We Left Running. I am also expanding with my mural work and developing digital work alongside my canvas practice.
Where can collectors encounter or acquire your work?
Originals, prints and more are available at www.vikoi.com. I am also active on social media and welcome direct conversation, I’d always rather talk to someone about a piece than simply sell it to them. I’m happy for collectors to visit my studio as well if they would like.
For more information, visit vikoi.com
