
Biography

Artist and researcher Nina Elder creates deep time perspectives where planets, geology, and ecosystems are in constellation with social issues and personal narratives. With a focus on changing cultures and ecologies, Nina advocates for collaboration, fostering relationships between institutions, artists, scientists and diverse communities. Her work takes many forms, including drawings, murals, performance, pedagogy, and long term community-based projects.
Nina’s project for Surel’s Place is titled Metamorphilia, a conceptual framework that embraces change. As she works towards the culmination of this project, she imagines creating sculptural props and pseudo-scientific tools. These objects will mimic the rudimentary ways that scientists understand geologic processes of erosion, accumulation, and sedimentation, including kites, wind ribbons, pinwheels, and paper boats.
“Bedrock, specifically the iconic eroded granite of southwestern Idaho will serve as my foundational metaphor as I research surprising and beautiful outcomes after massive upheaval and transformation. As reliquaries of eons of life and death, I will seek ways that metamorphic rock can be a teacher, a partner, a map, and a mirror.”
Recent solo exhibitions of Nina’s art have been organized by SITE Santa Fe, Indianapolis Contemporary, Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, and university museums across the US. Her work has been featured in Art in America, VICE Magazine, Hyperallergic, and on PBS. Her writing has been published by Routledge Press, American Scientist, and Edge Effects Journal. Nina’s research has been supported by the Warhol Foundation, Rauschenberg Foundation, Pollock-Krasner Foundation, and Mellon Foundation.
Nina Elder has a MFA in Painting from the San Francisco Art Institute and a BFA in Painting from the University of New Mexico.
During her residency, Nina asked the land how we can learn from cycles of fracture and transformation. Erosion was her teacher. Granite revealed what endures after disintegration. Explored and expressed through performance, drawing, and writing, Metamorphilia invigorates the mind and body towards the future, imagines a planet that is dynamic and beyond human control, yet fosters deep connection and stewardship. As Nina works towards the culmination of this project, she will share both collections and creations from her residency: photos, videos, sculptural props and pseudo-scientific tools.