Nancy Gifford studied art at Kent State University in Ohio. After earning her degree, she spent a decade in Europe and Morocco modeling and working in film before beginning her studio art career in Los Angeles. Her early work in mixed media, sculpture, and installation consisted of political and environmental pieces as exhibited in her first show in 1987 The Downwind Series. She counts Eve Hesse, Jenny Holzer, Marcel Duchamp, Anselm Kiefer, Joseph Beuys, Ann Hamilton, and Julian Schnabel amongst her influences. Her series Not My Mother’s Quilt consists of large scale quilts constructed with expanded media, each with an individual story. The work was inspired by childhood memories on her family’s farm in Ohio where she cut out squares for her mother’s fundraising quilts. She’s the recipient of the Mayor Bradley Honor from the Los Angeles Arts Council in 1987, the Award of Excellence from New York City’s Gallery 54 in 1988, and the Bonnie Clearwater Award of Merit from the Von Liebig Art Center in 2002.
Inspired by poetry and the world at large, Nancy Gifford is an artist who enjoys using materials in a way they were not meant to be used. Initially driven by an idea that her art needs to be informed by grids and rows of changing color and form, Nancy Gifford managed to break free of the grid and is now recognized for her boundless visual vocabulary. She is heavily influenced by her love for poetry, as explained by Nancy herself: I like to say… painting is the refuge of the failed poet…. What artist would not rather be a poet? Art is so laborious, at least the kind of art I do.
American.
