Isabel Nygard

Detached (2020)

Keyframes from hybrid media animation (work in progress)
Dimensions Vary

This animation looks for the answer to why physical aspects cause such distinct categorization of humans through the isolation of shape and color of body parts. Disconcerting mingles with comical to create a piece that questions notions of human classification.

Amalgam (2020)

Keyframes from hybrid media animation (work in progress)
Dimensions Vary

Physical appearance is a driving factor in denoting someone as the “other.” This animation explores identity and belonging through a grotesque but playful, gentle vivisection of the self.

Collision (2018)

Acrylic on Canvas Panel
12” x 9”

The interaction between color and texture was inspired by the collision of differences. Often a violent and turbulent process both metaphorically and physically, this piece abstracts the manifestation of emotion this process incurs.

Mixed (2018)

Acrylic on Canvas Panel
12” x 9”

Mixing is an ubiquitous process—we mix ingredients, chemicals, music, etc. This painting is a cathartic, playful expression of being mixed; there are moments where the distinct components are visible, but also blended into something new.

The Taming (2018)

Plywood and found wood
Dimensions Vary

This wooden sculpture is a portrayal of the feeling of facing fear. Both self and fear sit facing one another. If the self were to let fear advance, both would fall. It is the self that must move towards confrontation.

Artist Statement

Being “mixed” is an increasingly relevant concept in my life. As a woman with a multicultural and multiracial family, finding a place of acceptance when the different communities only see the “other” in me is a driving factor in my art. I take a lighthearted and whimsical approach to the traumas of alienation and invisibility to not only process past experiences, but also reconnect to the readiness with which we accepted others as children. Through animation, painting, and sculpture, my work is an intimate practice exploring ways to work through inner conflict, find joy in the mundane, and achieve a sense of balance and belonging.

Slow, repetitive, deliberative processes drive my practice as they induce a meditative state that allows for internal reflection. Hand-drawn, frame-by-frame animation has become an outmoded form for creating animated pieces due to the time consuming nature of the medium. However, its nostalgic look and slow, laborious process lend itself nicely to the application of my practice. The amount of time spent on each frame and having to complete many frames to make a single moment allows me as the maker to slow down and meditate on the material being generated, and also allows the viewer to experience a playful and entertaining piece.

Painting is another way I am able to simultaneously toy with the concept of “mixing” while creating an aesthetic and familiar experience for a viewer. The concept of mixing is a process that takes place in many aspects of daily life: chemicals in industrial production, ingredients in culinary arts, colors in art, and many more. These modes of mixing become a metaphor that I use in my art to explore the ways my mixed heritage has affected my life. My two-dimensional works are always on a smaller scale of under two feet, which I find gives an intimacy with the work that I enjoy during making, and also forces the viewer to come closer in order to engage with the work.

Through my works, my art blends the imaginative and the optimistic juxtaposed against the mundane and traumatic. Although my work’s content is rooted in personal experience, familiar and aesthetic visuals allow my work to reach a wider audience to share feelings of enjoyment, desire for community, and understanding.