Nikki Leigh McKean — spiritually known as Mukti — is a creative visionary, photographer, retreat leader, and soul guide whose work revolves around the art of creative alchemy: the transformational process of turning life’s experiences — the tender, the magical, the messy, the resilient — into beauty, meaning, and light. Splitting her time between Caledon, Canada and Costa Rica, Nikki moves through the world with presence and purpose, guided by the belief that creativity and healing are deeply intertwined.
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As a two-time cancer survivor, Nikki carries a profound understanding of resilience, tenderness, and the sacredness of being alive. Her healing journey infuses every aspect of her work, inspiring her to help others transform their own stories, emotions, and experiences into something powerful, expressive, and true. Through her lens and her heart, Nikki lives and teaches the essence of creative alchemy: that we can always create something new from who we’ve been.
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As a commercial lifestyle photographer, Nikki is known for capturing truth with warmth, intuition, and emotional depth. For over two decades, her work has stretched across lifestyle stories, commercial campaigns, and personal projects rooted in presence and authenticity. A decade of photographing weddings strengthened her gift for sensing human connection and translating it into images that feel alive and soul-filled.
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Through Nikki Magic, she steps fully into her role as a creative mindset and soul/rest coach, guiding others to reconnect with their inner wisdom, creativity, and spirit. She weaves together mindfulness, expressive art, movement, rest practices, energy work, and the hard-earned knowledge that comes from surviving, softening, rebuilding, and choosing joy again and again. In her sessions and programs, creative alchemy becomes a pathway: a way for people to transform their inner world, reclaim their voice, and reconnect with their magic.
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A radiant part of Nikki’s work lives in her transformative retreats, held in sacred, healing locations around the world. These retreats are immersive journeys where rest, creativity, storytelling, movement, and soul-connection merge into profound transformation. Guests often describe them as life-shifting experiences — places where hearts open, clarity emerges, healing deepens, and creative alchemy unfolds in community.
 
Nikki is also the heart behind FEEL THAT, a mindfulness project born from her breast cancer journey — a time when she needed small, grounding practices to stay connected to hope and her own inner light. Out of this deeply vulnerable chapter she created “Let’s Radiate,” a series of daily activities designed to bring presence, compassion, and gentle joy into life’s hardest moments. What began as her personal medicine grew into a shared offering, inviting others to alchemize fear into softness, uncertainty into clarity, and healing into radiant self-love.
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Her creativity also extends boldly into hospitality as the long-time Restaurateur and Creative Director/Co-Owner of PIANO PIANO the Restaurant — a wildly beloved, joy-soaked, Italian-fueled playground where colour, flavour, design, and a little sensual mischief come together in the most delicious ways. Nikki has helped shaped PIANO PIANO’s signature vibe: whimsical, warm, stylish, a touch cheeky, and always rooted in connection. From the bold murals to the dreamy interiors to the soulful food experiences, her creative fingerprints help make PIANO PIANO a place where people come not just to eat, but to feel, laugh, celebrate, flirt with life, and savour the magic of gathering.
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Whether she is designing a restaurant, capturing a moment, guiding a retreat, or holding space one-on-one, Nikki’s work creates environments where people feel safe, inspired, and deeply seen.
Her life and craft are shaped by continuous study, global exploration, and a devotion to growth. Nikki has trained widely in photography, yoga, meditation, trauma-informed practices, culinary nutrition, energy healing, mindset work, and spiritual education. She has volunteered and served communities touched by illness, transformation, and healing — always returning to the same intention: to inspire hope, elevate beauty, and help people remember their magic.
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At her core, Nikki is a storyteller, a survivor, a creator, a feeler, a retreat leader, and a dreamer. She loves nature, animals, laughter that shakes your whole body, cotton-candy sunsets, silent 4am mornings, dancing, designing, community, and the kind of honesty that opens and frees the heart.
Whether through a photograph, a retreat, a practice, a conversation, or a shared meal, Nikki invites you into a simple, profound truth:

You can transform anything. You can create beauty from your story. You can alchemize your life.
Slow down. Feel deeply. Remember your resilience. And let your magic rise.
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