Check out Liz Nania’s Artwork

Today we’d like to introduce you to Liz Nania.

Liz, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
Art making is my oldest love. I’ve been drawing, painting, and making things since I was first given a crayon. I believe it’s a human need to make things, whether art, craft or just making pleasurable visual choices in daily life. Luckily, that need never got squeezed out of me; over the years, I’ve gotten a BFA in art, I’ve taught art (and currently, dance!) to people of all ages and abilities, and I’ve played and worked with many different media.

We’d love to hear more about your art. What do you do and why and what do you hope others will take away from your work?
For the last several years, wax and thread have won my heart. I paint with encaustic on birch, and I also make textile art with vintage and original hand embroidery. Encaustic paint is a seductively luminous mixture of beeswax, tree resin and pigments that I heat to 160 degrees, and paint in many layers on birch panels. (It’s been in use since the 1st and 2nd centuries by Greek painters in Egypt, and it’s totally archival.) For my fiber art, I combine pieces of found vintage hand embroidery with my own original embroidery and mixed media. My paintings and fiber art explore themes of joy, time, the personal sacred, women’s work, lesbian love, music, social change, celebration, and a whole host of human emotions. I rarely plan my semi-abstract imagery; it emerges intuitively as I paint or stitch in many, many layers.

I love when people make an emotional connection with my work, when there’s that click, and they recognize something relatable and compelling. I’ve been told that the way I use materials looks yummy, and is seductive. I do get a thrill when the viewer experiences a jolt of recognition, or joy, or kinship, or even just visual delight in something I made.

Artists face many challenges, but what do you feel is the most pressing among them?
Boston is a very good arts city, but we need more spaces for artists to work, and places for the community to see art. I recently finished a month-long residency at Spaceus, a truly visionary venture: pop-up affordable urban art studios and gallery space created by two women architecture students at MIT. (Boston, take note, this is a brilliant and economically smart model for bringing more art and artists to the city!)

Do you have any events or exhibitions coming up? Where would one go to see more of your work? How can people support you and your artwork?
I’m absolutely thrilled to be in a two-person show with a brilliant artist who’s been a great influence on me, Jeanne-Marie Crede, in October 2019 at Gorse Mill Gallery in Needham.

You can see my art at www.liznania.com, and on Instagram: liz_nania_art. And my dance studio is www.OUTtoDance.com.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.liznania.com
• Email: glittercity111 at yahoo dot com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/liz_nania_art/
• Other: www.OUTtoDance.com

Image Credit:
Sandy Bailey

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