Nisu Seder's Projects

MFA Student

Major: Sculpture

Graduation Year: Spring 2016

Artist Statement:

“Being alive is an emotional event. Installation art allows the audience to be an active participant in the experience. This phenomenon physically connects the viewer to the artwork.”
Nisu Seder 2016

The arrangement of art objects in space affects emotional well-being. Humans have arranged, manipulated and admired objects in space throughout history. These objects may be small, like the ancient ritualistic Venus of Willendorf or personal items we treasure, or epic in scale like buildings or monuments. Under appreciated is the space in which the object of attention exists. Art objects not only serve as objects of beauty, utility, worship, or entertainment - they also anchor us to our world. The contemplation of an object's placement in space at first seems simple, but for the artist and the viewer it can be extremely complex.

Biography:

Nisu Seder was born in 1971 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She is the daughter of two architects, and grew up in the Southwestern United States. From a young age she spent time exploring the desert as her family moved from worksite to work site. She received a B.A. in Art Education in 1995 at the University of New Mexico, and later studied at the Art Students' League in New York. She is presently a MFA candidate at Maine College of Art. Nisu works, teaches, studies, and lives in Portland, Maine. She is a professional educator who has taught drawing, painting, sculpture, jewelry, ceramics and art history to high school students in New Mexico and Maine since 1995. During this time she inspired and helped dozens of students to get into art schools across the country. She is an experienced studio arts teacher who is pursuing masters-level training partly to enhance her studio practice and partly to become a more effective teacher. She believes that teaching art, mentoring young artists, and creating art all inform and enhance one another. Seder's recent artworks consist of site-specific installations that create awareness of surrounding space, and generate a physical tension between the object and audience. Her work purposefully interrupts the physical space of the viewer, causing them to become increasingly self-aware - emotionally and physically present in the art viewing moment. She is also interested in the space between objects. Her work references open spaces, massive forms, and landscape.