email: wistigrayson@yahoo.com

Nancy Wisti Grayson


Around the age of four, I first saw a reproduction of a detail from Giotto’s Kiss of Judas that I kept going back to. It was a closeup of Judas' face and part of his robe, a sliver of Jesus' face and soldiers faces tumbling down in between the two of them. The rather brutish beautifulness that made the image compelling and jarring at the same time, with it's aged physicality of the surface, the magic of the detail defining the whole, the mystery of the narrative, and the layering of space are notions have always played in my background.

My drawings and sculptural paintings act as found mementos, referencing art historical memories or reminiscence of place. Using the tropes of artifact or souvenir, there is a somewhat askew anchor to familiarity.

Currently based in Chicago, I received my undergraduate and graduate degrees in painting from Wayne State University in Detroit. I've been an AIR at Palazzo Rinaldi, Noepoli (Basilicata), Italy and at Arte Studio Ginestrelle in Assisi, Italy.