I make paintings with pixels and pigments, creating images and experiences that amplify the everyday, seemingly mundane moments of life. Through the tiniest of details that catch my eye—a shape, texture, or shadow, someone’s brightly colored hair, tattoos, or piercings, a bit of music, memory, or folklore—I examine questions of power and privilege, of feeling cast aside, unsafe, unwanted, ugly, and without value. I continuously seek safety, grace, and care, both in the present and in an infinite number of imagined histories and futures I create … that often reconnect to those tiny details in novel ways. My digital paintings are intended to be viewed in the same way as the traditional ones; both are made using a photo as a reference, departing from it once an initial sketch is made. With my digital works, I do sometimes use the original photos as a basis for colors, sometimes I depart entirely from it, using online color palette generators or other photographs that use colors in ways that catch my eye.
About
Nashay Antoinette Jones is an interdisciplinary visual artist and emerging curator born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In their artwork, they seek to expose the beauty inherent in difference, in the act of embracing and defining for oneself what it means to be the ‘Other’.
Nashay received their MA in Museum Studies from the University of the Arts in 2021 and an MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts from Goddard College in 2015. Since graduating, they have been working to unite their pre-existing studio art practice with their new curatorial one, to “act as a mediator between artworks, objects, and ideas” in a variety of contexts, including museums, galleries, and community spaces.
I am currently creating a new website, but folks can see my work on Instagram @nyelarebirthstudios or on Twitter @nyelarebirthart.