Nomi Silverman
Nomi Silverman · Source: New York Artists Circle · Rights retained by the original rights holders
- Medium
- Clay, Egg Tempera Paint, Ink, Oil Paint, Pastel, Plaster
- Practice
- Books, Drawing, Mixed Media, Printmaking, Sculpture, Works on Paper
Nomi Silverman’s work deals with socio-political themes, the outsiders, and the others—those who have lesser voices. Her subject matter includes homelessness, racial violence, Matthew Shepard, Iraq, and most recently, a … Full biography
Biography
Nomi Silverman’s work deals with socio-political themes, the outsiders, and the others—those who have lesser voices. Her subject matter includes homelessness, racial violence, Matthew Shepard, Iraq, and most recently, a large body of work on refugees and immigration. She works in many mediums: sculpture (terra cotta, bronze, plaster), drawing, and printmaking (woodcut, lithography, and intaglio), often combining media to create interesting juxtapositions.
She has shown her work in museums and university galleries, as well as art centers. Her work is collected in numerous museums and institutions, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Achenbach Foundation for the Graphic Arts, the Fairfield University Art Museum, The New York Public Library, the Boston Public Library, the Benton Museum of Art, The Douro Museum in Portugal, the Split Graphic Arts Museum in Croatia, and the National Museum of Fine Arts in Taiwan. She has won several awards, fellowships, and grants.
Artist statement
My art deals with nuances and subtitles, the shifting shadows of social issues. I explore this through the human figure—that fragile mortal vessel that contains our most basic selves— and use my abiding love of drawing as a path to express innate concerns about liberty, fear, and hope.
Some of my topics are as simple as an individual’s need for work, sustenance, shelter, and yes, love. Others are as geopolitically volatile as the indignities people suffer when they lose their basic freedoms. The body, that seemingly transcendent creation of blood, tissues, and sinews, reveals and reflects all those ideas and issues.
It is through this incarnate and fragile form that we hope to bestride the world, yet all too often cower in its shadows. And it is by means of charcoal, ink, and paint that I celebrate, agonize, and weep over this life, whether it is in the glare hurtling off of an arm wrenched by jailers or the shifting glow on necks entwined in an embrace.
