DRAWINGS
Nina creates large-scale, realistic drawings as an element of her research process. Based on historic and sometimes classified photographs as well as those resulting from her own fieldwork, these drawings depict the geologic interruptions and human-made destruction of specific places. The drawings are made using site-specific pigments, including radioactive charcoal, pulverized guns, glacial silt and stardust. The drawings are often cut or incised, removing elements of the image to comment on the voids caused by extractive industries.
PERPLEXITIES
TIMEPIECES
UPLIFT
bonds and breaks
SHATTERS
FRAYS
LISTS
MINES
forests
meteorites
nuclear
piles
military
ecosystems
SELECT EXHIBITIONS
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Nina Elder: What Endures, SITE Santa Fe, NM
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THE SCORE, Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art
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Nina Elder: Accumulations, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY
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Hot Spots: Radioactivity and the Landscape, Krannert Art Museum, IL and University of Buffalo Art Museum, NY
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Deep Time Lab with Nina Elder, University of New Mexico Art Museum, Albuquerque
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Species in Peril, 516 Arts, Albuquerque, NM
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Inner Orbit, form + concept, Santa Fe, NM
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66 Mile Radius, Tamarind Institute, Albuquerque, NM
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New Works: Nina Elder, Central Features, Albuquerque, NM
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Atomic Landscapes, IDEA Space, Colorado College, Colorado Springs, CO
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Nina Elder: Overlook, Rule Gallery, Denver, CO
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Marred Landscapes, Oats Park Arts Center, Fallon, NV
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Landlessness, Ortega y Gasset Projects, Brooklyn, NY
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Art for a Silent Planet: Blaustein, Elder, and Long, Harwood Museum of Art, Taos, NM
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Atomic Surplus, Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Fe, NM
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Taos Contemporary, Center for Visual Arts, Denver, CO
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Exhaust, Richard Levy Gallery, Albuquerque, NM
PERPLEXITIES 2023
Is there a horizon between the past and the future? When exactly does change begin? These contemplations on the physical texture of time and the potential for transformation capture fleeting moments with nuanced attention. Commonplace events mix with icons of social justice- a tumbleweed tossed on the spring wind in New Mexico, Harriet Tubman’s grasped hands, the secret maps that we each carry on our skulls, the sky over Standing Rock, the reflection of sunshine on a river, the brave first steps of the march from Selma. Highlighting the mighty and the mundane, Nina presents evidence of the perplexing and poetic nature of transformation.
TIMEPIECES 2022
Time is understood through an array of measures - seasons, moods, migrations, and lifelines. This series of drawings explores a constellation of alternative clocks and calendars.
UPLIFT 2021
As a counterbalance to the exclusivity she observed in the conspicuous care of yachts, Nina made these drawings while considering what else is carried in more private realms. Created using marine motor lubricant and industrial pulp mill waste—materials that point to certain non-recreational realities in Maine—these drawings abstract what is uplifted and are meditations on the kinds of invisible emotional lifting we all do.
bond and breakS 2021
This series of drawings depicts knotted ropes, mended anchor lines, and fraying nets. As metaphors of living through climate devastation and social upheaval, these images revel in the complexities of dependency and brokenness. They question what tethers humanity during periods of extreme change and how we might exist with what remains.
SHATTERS 2020-2021
Made in conjunction with a video installation, each drawing in this series depicts a single shattered stone that has been unsuccessfully put back together.
FRAYS 2020
This series of drawings intimately explores a frayed strap. Though its use as a powerful object has been rendered obsolete, the beauty of its destruction is evident.
LISTS ongoing
This series of artworks utilize stream of consciousness list-making as a way to think through categories of information and concepts. The lists explore phenomenon, responding to questions including “What protects? What is fleeting? What is exponential?” The emerging words become large 2D artworks with the words meticulously incised into pigment laden paper. See more lists here.
MINES 2015-2016
Nina explores the Kennecott Corporation, and how their multinational extractivism has shaped the earth. These are drawn using graphite, dirt, and pulverized detritus that she collected from the original Kennecott Mine in Alaska.
FORESTS 2016, 2020
Nina’s drawings of clear cut forests and lumber processing reveal some of the most ubiquitous landscapes in the U.S. Pacific Northwest. Drawn using incinerated industrial waste from pulp mills, these focus the viewer on the textures and scale of deforestation.
METEORITES 2017, 2019
Meteorites are sacred to indigenous people around the globe, yet they are collected by museums as scientific specimens. Nina engaged with indigenous culture bearers around the world to learn about their desire to have the meteorites returned. These drawings depict the voids that are left by scientific colonialism.
nuclear 2012, 2018
Using classified historic photographs of nuclear tests as source material, these drawings depict the secretive emergence of nuclearism in New Mexico. Drawn using radioactive charcoal from forest fires in areas surrounding nuclear test sites, the materiality of the work challenges the amnesia and disregard that is often felt towards the land based legacy of the atomic era.
PILES 2009-2019
Piles of rocks are one of humanity's most indelible marks on the planet. Not only are they geologic reliquaries, but also documents of human greed. Nina questions if these are disaster sites, or monuments.
MILITARY 2017
During a series of research trips to the Arctic’s farflung radar sites, Nina traced her father’s path as a Cold War-era government contractor. These drawings depict now-obsolete radar station that once linked Alaska’s extremes with the lower 48. These drawings explore metaphors of communication and interruption.
ecosystems 2016
These drawings explore a psychological response to ecosystem collapse, and the ghosts and memories that will remain. By translating information about ecosystem disruption into visual voids and inversions, these drawings ask: what is being erased? What is being turned upside down? What will remain? As dominant human culture is expressed through extraction, consumption, and waste, what remains and what will become extinct?
