Aliza Nisenbaum is a Mexican-born artist, who lives and works in New York. She often depicts portraits of a person, people, or community groups. Her works about the dedication of NHS (National Health Service) staff from Merseyside during the pandemic period will set to run from 15 December 2020 – 27 June 2021 at Tate Liverpool.
Credit picture: Courtesy of Artist. https://www.instagram.com/alizanisenbaum/
Nisenbaum’s paintings are very touching, with the stories about how NHS staff works to save lives and how Covid-19 has affected their home lives as well. The paintings are bright, colorful, and intense. Every picture has its own story that is seen from the facial expression of the subject and his/her surrounding also. Nisenbaum’s portraits deal with the mixed feelings and emotions of the subjects. I see Nisenbaum’s painting as an embodying of love and care. It speaks beyond the words, through their bodies and actions.
To raise the elements of subject personality in her paintings, Aliza Nisenbaum always makes a deep conversation with her talents. She usually works in her studio with the sitters or real life with the subjects doing their activities. However, the spreading of Covid-19 does not allow all of these. She told studiointernational.com, “Since the coronavirus, I’ve been inspired by how that has completely changed. We’re all on Zoom..”. . She turns her method to paint based on memories, photographs, and Zoom meetings.
In Tate Liverpool’s exhibition, you will see the two new large-scale group portraits and eleven individual portraits. Besides that, you will also enjoy three films that one of them is the documentary of Nisenbaum’s creative process for this exhibition and previous her projects.
Aliza Nisenbaum’s paintings are pivotal since they talk not only about the struggle of health care workers amid the pandemic, but also, the most important things are love, sacrifice, and humanity.
Fun Facts about Aliza Nisenbaum:
- She paints many intimate portraits of the Mexican and Central American immigrants.
- In 2012, Nisenbaum began working as an art and English teacher at Tania Bruguera’s project, a community center called Immigrant Movement International (IMI).
- She was graduated from Psychology at Universidad, Iberoamericana, Mexico in 1999.
- She also got a Bachelor’s and Master’s from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
- Currently, she is a professor at Columbia University’s School of the Arts.
- To prepare for Tate’s exhibition, she had taken leave from her teaching until January 2021.
- Nisenbaum was in Los Angeles when she painted NHS Staff of Merseyside, UK.
- “ For Nisenbaum, the process of painting portraits from observation is a political act, one that sets up an ethical encounter in which both participants give their attention and trust and learn about one another.”
- Her early works explore the still-life of flowers.
- In 2019, Nisenbaum involved in the series of commissions for Brixton Underground station that portrayed “15 people working on the Transport for London network across the Victoria line – including train drivers, operational staff, and those working in facilities and administration”.
- Her works can be visited on https://alizanisenbaum.com/