Nancy Andrews’ first solo exhibition in her home state brings together diverse threads of her artistic practice, including drawing, collage, video, and sculpture. The questions that unite this work explore the concept of display–what is displayed in the home, how femininity is displayed in popular media, and how we look at what is displayed–and the disconnect between American ideals and actualities.
The work offers a particularly female point of view on aspirations for peace and prosperity in the home, reflecting on pervasive overtones of ownership and the desire to control women’s bodies by men who occupy dominant roles in our past and current Western culture. Similarly, Andrews’ portrayal of animals pushes against human-made boundaries by affording them subjecthood and their own, autonomous gazes. Some of the artworks in the exhibition were inspired in part by the artist’s family—her grandfather who carved birds that he mounted on felt-covered wood and her grandmother and mother who practiced a myriad of sewing and needle-based techniques to clothe the family, furnish the home, and celebrate holidays.
About the artist
Nancy Andrews is best known as a filmmaker and animator but pursues parallel practices in music, drawing, collage and sculpture. She is driven by a sense of oddness and discomfort that she builds into characters, images and narratives that often feature female characters who are brilliant misfits. The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) has collected six of her experimental films. She has received funding awards from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, The Ellis-Beauregard Foundation Fellowship, LEF New England Moving Image Fund, Maine Arts Commission and Illinois and Maryland Arts Councils. Her films screen internationally at the MoMA, Pacific Film Archive, Anthology Film Archive, Jerusalem Film Festival, Flaherty Seminars, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Taiwan International Animation Festival, and International Film Festival Rotterdam, among others. She won awards such as Gotham Award for Breakout Series and the Imagine Science Film Festival, Outstanding Feature Award. As public service, Andrews works to make known the effects of Post-ICU Syndrome and ICU delirium. Andrews is on faculty at College of the Atlantic and lives on the coast of Maine. She holds an MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BFA from The Maryland Institute, College of Art.
From the artist: These new works were encouraged by receiving The Ellis-Beauregard Foundation Fellowship, and the connected opportunity to show work in the CMCA. Profound thanks to EBF and CMCA and their staffs and supporters. Many thanks to Hewnoaks Artists Residency and my cohort there last summer.
Nancy Andrews: Homebodies is organized by CMCA’s Executive Director, Timothy Peterson, in collaboration with the artist. CMCA’s summer exhibitions are made possible by a grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the support of generous members and donors.