About
Elisabeth Nicula is an interdisciplinary artist from Norfolk, Virginia. Her work is in conversation with nature: she is interested in the sense of self engendered by landscapes; in observing and depicting the natural world via abstracted scales of space and time; and in poetics and memory. She publishes websites composed of painstakingly-made animated GIFs, video footage, digital drawings, and photography. dioramas.space, her ongoing project supported by a grant from Rhizome, is about seeing and being seen by the non-human world, maintenance and tending, and connecting her emotional landscape to the exigencies of ecological disaster.
A funny thing happened in 2017. Elisabeth noticed a molting scrub jay in the backyard and started photographing him. She distrusts the idea of a daily practice but over the course of two years amassed over 30,000 photographs of one bird. He is gone now and she isn't sure what to do with his corpus.
Contact
Send inquiries of any kind to hi@elisabethnicula.com.
Newsletter
Writing and Publications
2021 "Frank's Corpus," SFMOMA's Open Space
2020 "Culture Diary: Elisabeth Nicula," niͥghͪᴛⷮliͥfeͤ
2020 Living Room Light Exchange Season 6 Survey, in Rare Earth: The Ground is Not Digital
2020 "Under the Road," Silica Magazine
2020 "March 27, 2020," in Urgency Reader 2, and reprinted in 25 From Urgency Reader 2 for the Brooklyn Art Book Fair, Queer.Archive.Work
2019 "Have You Seen This Bird," New Life Quarterly
2019 abjectsubli.me (ongoing)
2019 Tidewater (unpublished), performed at PLACE TALKS at the Prelinger Library
2018 dioramas.space (ongoing)
2017 "Dioramas," SFMOMA's Open Space
2017 "California," Silica Magazine
2017 "NATUREGIFMANIFESTO," Living Room Light Exchange Issue 02, State Change
2016 "Artist Elisabeth Nicula's New Collection on 'Climate Anxiety'," PAPER Magazine
2016 "Aspects of Geological Time," instructions for assembling a paper GIF, Living Room Light Exchange Issue 01
Selected Exhibitions and Commissions
2019–2020
Miss You, for the Peregrination Pavilion at the Wrong Biennale
2019
Elisabeth Nicula: Already Underwater, Black & White Projects, San Francisco, CA
2018
New Work: A Retrospective, Black & White Projects, San Francisco, CA
2017
Dioramas solo show and residency, Black & White Projects, San Francisco, CA
Bring Your Own Beamer, R/SF Projects, San Francisco, CA
2016
geologicaltime.net for Internet! A Retrospective, SPUR, San Francisco, CA
Aspects of Geological Time (fig. 8 – 13), a second series of commissioned videos for Electric Objects' Art Club
Aspects of Geological Time (fig. 3) for Relaxation Machine: New Hive + Print Screen Net.Art Show, Print Screen Festival, Holon, Israel (Jurors Liat Berdugo, Melissa Broder, Lior Zalmanson)
Substrates: Elisabeth Nicula, Anthony Ryan, and Clare Szydlowski, City Arts Gallery at CCSF, San Francisco, CA
Hybrid Series #1, Pro Arts Gallery, Oakland, CA
Predictions, commissioned video and still works for Electric Objects' Art Club. Read the interview.
Follow for Unfollow, The Galallery, San Francisco, CA
Prints: California Society of Printmakers, Isabelle Percy West Gallery, Oakland, CA (Juror Karen Kunc)
Artspan Group Exhibition, stARTup Art Fair, San Francisco, CA
2015
Fusion's Real Future Fair, San Francisco, CA
A Tipping Point won Newhive's call for #futureart
Winterfest Art Show, San Francisco, CA
A benefit auction for the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition
2 Blocks of Art, 66 Sixth, San Francisco, CA
Where solo show, Graphic Arts Workshop Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Print Exchange: Just a Second, Ground Floor Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
Pressed, Pacific Art League Main Gallery, Palo Alto, CA (Juror Andrea Voinot)
ArtSpan's Juried Art Auction, SOMArts Cultural Center, San Francisco, CA
Impulse, Arc Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2014
Fragments of Moments, Curated State pop-up show, San Francisco, CA
Where installation, Window Treat Gallery, San Francisco, CA
ArtLaunch 2014, SOMArts Cultural Center, San Francisco, CA
Selected as a top ten SF open studios artist by jurors Valerie Leavy and Dennis McNulty
Let This Be a Sign... (Print Exchange 2014), 7 Dunham Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
New Members Show, Graphic Arts Workshop, San Francisco, CA
Prints from the Graphic Arts Workshop, Southern Graphics Council International, Alley Cat Books Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Sketchbook Project 2014, Brooklyn Art Library, Brooklyn, NY, and national tour
2013
Rethink Ink: 25 years at the Mixit Print Studio, Cantor Art Gallery, Worcester, MA
16th Annual National Small Works Exhibition, Washington Printmakers Gallery, Silver Spring, MD (Juror Philippa Hughes)
Salon 21, Nave Gallery, Somerville, MA (Juror Michelle Fiorenza)
Black Ink, Nave Gallery Annex, Somerville, MA (Juror Carolyn Muskat)
Prints, Plates, and Blocks, Stafford Arts Center, Greensboro, NC (Juror Molly Stouten)
2012
Rethink Ink: 25 years at the Mixit Print Studio, Boston Public Library, Boston, MA
Printmania, Arts Union, Somerville, MA
Selected Performances and Talks
2021 Art talk for the Information Maintainers (video)
2020 "Have You Seen This Bird," reading and talk with Jordan Karnes, Wolfman New Life Quarterly Issue 6 release party, Beauty Supply Arts, Oakland, CA
2019 Tidewater, performed narrative with projected animations, PLACE TALKS, Prelinger Library, San Francisco, CA
2019 Guest lecture for Liat Berdugo's Copy Culture class, University of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA
2018 Art talk at Living Room Light Exchange with Sanaz Mazinani, Beth Stephens, and Annie Sprinkle, Oakland, CA
2017 Readings and Art for the Human and Non-human Worlds, with Kate Schapira, Javier Arbona, and Maya Weeks, E. M. Wolfman, Oakland, CA
2017 "NATUREGIFMANIFESTO" reading, Living Room Light Exchange Issue 02, State Change release party, with Rick Prelinger, Blinkpopshift, and Joe Veix, The Thing Quarterly, San Francisco, CA
Curation
2013 Peer-Reviewed Submissions, Nave Gallery Annex, Somerville, MA (works in all media with mathematical or scientific themes, co-curated with Ted Ollier)
Also
Must Follow Artists on Tumblr for 2015
Member of the California Society of Printmakers
Former member of the printing cooperative Graphic Arts Workshop in San Francisco, California
Former member at Mixit Print Studio in Somerville, Massachusetts
Etchings and woodcuts in the permanent collections of the Boston Public Library and the Brooklyn Art Library
Bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Duke University in Durham, North Carolina
Painting and printmaking at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
