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  • ACTIVATING PERCEPTION | nina-isabelle

    HOME ABOUT PROJECTS THREE PHASE CONTACT SEARCH More... ACTIVATING PERCEPTION - NINA A. ISABELLE MIDTOWN ARTS DISTRICT by Debra Bresnan May 10, 2017 ​ https://madkingston.org/2017/05/09/nina-a-isabelle/ ​ When did you first know you were an artist? Growing up people referred to me as an artist and so I became one – an experience that made me aware of the power of language, perception, belief, and social programming, all themes in my current work. It’s possible that if I had grown up in a different environment I might have been an engineer because as an artist I’m always working with how things like concepts of memory and phenomena articulate with visual and spatial perception, language, materials, and meaning and how to build generative dialogue between these factors. Where an engineer might work with materials, data, or electricity, as an artist I use a similar approach but with different variables. ​ Favorite medium(s) you use to make art? My favorite art medium is probably the phenomena of perception and how language builds reality. Right now my focus is on working to manipulate and bend notions surrounding the value and usefulness of art away from commodity and towards structures that represent essential and social value. Inside of this, working with painting I can still have an intention to study gesture, motion, and look for new languages that might emerge from this action and mark making or find new information in whatever emerges. I like to get my hands on chunks of materials like vats of clay, lumber, bolts of fabric, or discarded machine parts and sort of grapple with the stuff until it gives in to another form. Sometimes I might start out with an intention or give myself an assignment, but other times I let myself generate information by engaging with materials and paying close attention as I go. ​ Since I work pretty equally with photography, video, design, performance, installation, and painting, nothing is really off limits to me. I grew up at a summer camp for kids where we had an arts and crafts department with a ceramics studio, photo lab, leather tools, batik, enamels, silk screens, and fabric dye, among others. Nine months out of the year these departments were vacant and I really made the best of it – I learned to use the kiln and glazes by haphazardly blowing up and melting a lot of stuff, mixing chemistry by taste, a lot of other experimental and dangerous learning-by-doing that has carried over to my current approach. I never read instructions as a younger person because I couldn’t really read until I went to college. I’m rarely intimidated by new things, and I think that’s one of my favorite things about my development and approach. What are the most interesting new trends in your field? Is your work changing as a result? One of the most exciting things I notice right now is a shift toward recognizing the social value of art as a tool to reframe reality through community building, open sourcing ideas and data, and through things like artist collectives and working together with other artists and community members. In the art world, there are always these superficial fads like geometric shapes or graffiti, or some new trendy material, or something everyone is doing like such-and-such, but my work doesn’t usually wind up aligning itself with those sorts of cultural flows. I don’t usually find myself in trendy circles — something that has made it difficult to find a community but also has led me to the point where I am now. I recognize that, all along, my running mission has been to challenge outmoded institutional and economic systems that have grown regulated and insular and to work to build systems to replace these. Artists are always pressing hard against hierarchal structures like gender, race, and social class: It seems like the discord generated by our new political administration is influencing a lot of art thinking these days. ​ Talk about your creative process ­– where/when do you get most of your ideas and how do you know a piece is ‘finished’? My creative process is rooted pretty firmly in letting myself respond instinctively. One thing I often find myself doing is trying to destroy rosy notions that abound around creativity being “beautiful.” Being a person who has given birth to babies I recognize the mess, blood, and pain that goes along with creativity. I have a lot of ideas and mostly I choose to go with the ones that make me laugh about myself or our collective idiocy. I also like to work with themes that irk me such as fake systems of legitimization we use to determine success, such as university degrees, financial values and the gender and power imbalances that seem to perpetually skew the art world. ​ Making art objects like paintings and sculptures, and grappling with material and concepts together, I’ve questioned the point of it beyond decoration or commodity and have come to understand my process as a personal tool that lets me understand reality in a way that I can integrate. Working with materials and visual information puts me in touch with deeper threads of meaning, and nuances of life that fortify the tapestry. I’m drawn toward this way of working and thinking because there seems to be something I can’t quite say in writing or speaking, something linear language can’t quite get at. I don’t know what it is yet and that’s what keeps me engaged. ​ As far as recognizing when something is finished, I think it’s just a matter of paying attention to a subtle feeling of “doneness,” or arriving at a comfortable stopping point or a feeling of resolve – like I’ve figured something out or said what I meant to say. Sometimes a stopping point might never come because maybe I’ve gone down on a dead-end path. I have a lot of projects in limbo because they’ve become overwhelming or I’ve lost interest, things I can always get back to at any point. And, in a quantum way, things can never be finished because time isn’t linear and there’s no such thing as an end point. ​ Do you also teach or are you strictly a creative artist? Who was your most influential mentor and why? How do you see the role of being a mentor? and why? In the past, I’ve taught art classes like photography, modern dance, and painting or movement workshops. There is always a technical entry point where students spend time learning about say, the camera machine, visual mechanics, basic movement patterns, or just becoming familiar with materials, and this can be a fun and engaging way for people to come together. But I always want to move further into dialogue about how the usefulness of these art tools and practices can be more than a fun pastime or therapeutic hobby. Art offers invaluable ways to shift perception and find new vantage points. As an artist, I collaborate with others in several capacities that seem more like mutual mentorship, where we share and build upon each other’s momentum and concepts. I’m not sure that I’ve ever fit the part of strictly a mentor to another, but I do recognize people who’ve inspired me. I had a couple high school teachers who helped me to evade attendance, something that in a typical case might not sound helpful, but I really recognize and value people who have taken risks in order to do the right thing morally. School is not a good place for all children. ​ I can’t say that I’ve ever had a strong relationship with an individual mentor, but something that intrigued me early on was finding and building obscure relationships between seemingly unrelated artists and their work. I remember wondering about Käthe Kollwitz’s Woman With Dead Child in relationship to Henry Moore’s sculptures and sheep sketchbook, and Jim Dine’s Robes. Somehow the similar volume expressed in these works was curious to me, possibly as a subconscious desire to connect the physical form of my body to their work because I’ve always been athletic. I was also intrigued by industrial design and how humans interact with tools and objects, especially mid-century chairs like the Eames Lounger and Bertoia’s designs as a framework for simultaneously supporting physical and thought forms together. So in a way, I’ve let this sense of wonder guide me. What are you working on now? For the past year, I’ve been working on a project called The Superfund Re-Visioning Project . It’s an experimental framework that aims to transform contaminated industrial sites recognized by The United States Government as Superfund Sites. In New York State there are 117 of these sites. I’m developing a project that aims to create a platform for artists and community members who might otherwise be marginalized by political and financial systems that typically deal with these sorts of remediation. ​ I’m also involved with an artist collective developed by IV Castellanos called The Feminist Art Group (F.A.G.) from Brooklyn, and plan to invite them to Kingston this summer for one of The Shirt Factory Open Studio events. Currently, I have a show at the new HiLo gallery space in Catskill and like to participate in local shows at The Old Glenford Church Studio . I think it’s great when things like The UNITY show curated by Sarah Carlson and Lisa Barnard Kelley between the artists at The Shirt Factory and The Lace Mill come together to fortify community connectedness. Upcoming, I have work being featured by The Unstitute in Catalunya, Spain and plan to do something fun at Paul McMahon’s Mothership Gallery this fall. Recently my focus is moving into sound and auditory perception. I’ve become interested in digitally degraded sound snippets and obscuring auditory input to the point of noise in a way to find out what’s behind and within the experience of sound. ​ For more information about my work and listings of recent/current exhibitions, projects and collaborations, please visit www.ninaisabelle.com/cv . ​ How has being in Kingston enhanced/inspired your work? What do you like best about living in Kingston/being involved with MAD? How long have you been here? Kingston has a lot to offer artists and community members and is building momentum as an arts-branded district. Recently we’ve seen several exciting places pop up like David Schell’s Green Kill , Rilley Johndonnell’s Optimism concept, Broadway Arts , The Art/Life Institute on Abeel Street , and Kingston High School Art teacher Lara Giordano, who is exhibiting student work at PUGG on Broadway. The surrounding landscape is diverse and inspiring conceptually because of the Hudson River waterways, The Catskill Mountains, The Ashokan Reservoir, and the surrounding forests, hiking, and rail trails. The Mid-Hudson Library system is phenomenal, and it’s easy to travel back and forth to New York City from Kingston. It’s great to have artist studio spaces like The Shirt Factory and The Lace Mill which offer affordable living spaces for artists, and especially new organizations like MAD that are forming to support this new movement. ​

  • EXPERIMENTAL ARCHERY | nina-isabelle

    HOME ABOUT PROJECTS THREE PHASE CONTACT SEARCH More... EXPERIMENTAL ARCHERY & MARKMAKING WORKSHOP ​ @ ​ R O S E K I L L June 10, 2017

  • LISTENING MEDIUMS | nina-isabelle

    LISTENING MEDIUMS OCTOBER 2022 HOME ABOUT PROJECTS THREE PHASE CONTACT SEARCH More...

  • PSYCHIC SELF DEFENSE SCULPTURE | nina-isabelle

    HOME ABOUT PROJECTS THREE PHASE CONTACT SEARCH More... PSYCHIC SELF DEFENSE GIANT WOODEN STAKE FOR DESTROYING PSYCHIC VAMPIRES Inspired by Dion Fortune's Psychic Self-Defense: The Classic Instruction Manual for Protecting Yourself Against Paranormal Attack published in 1930, I carved an 11' wooden stake from a white pine tree removed from my property and designed a welded steel foundation to support and direct its potential in a specific way. There was a nearly dead forty-five foot tall white pine tree on my property that I needed to remove because it was next to a home with a newborn. I was overwhelmed by its potential for destruction as well as the terror at having to take responsibility. I feared it might smash a building or kill someone but I felt frozen to take action. Normally, I figure out a way to do things myself, but in this case I knew I had no ability to take down such a tree and I was having trouble finding a tree service who was able to schedule the job during the pandemic. I was also paralyzed by the thought of the expense. I wanted to run away, but knew I had to transform my fear and helplessness. I had the idea to approach the problem as an art project as a way to reconnect with my boldness and to remember the feeling of embodying initiative. Once I realized that I could apply methods from my art practice to this life circumstance, art became my teacher, and I began to hear the tree speaking to me saying "Look at me, I'm a giant wooden stake and I want to help you!" At the same time, I was rereading Dion Fortune's book Psychic Self-Defense: The Classic Instruction Manual for Protecting Yourself Against Paranormal Attack published in 1930 where she discusses the literal manifestation of vampiric energies and vampires themselves as people, circumstances, experiences, and entities that deplete us for their own gain. I had read the book as a young person and was now surprised to realize how her description of this system had maintained its relevance and how it paralleled the language of healthy boundaries as discussed in contemporary psychology. Vampiric energies accumulate through life experiences and interactions with other people and entities who intentionally or not connect their psyche to us. Unhealthy past relationships, traumas, and global events like the pandemic have the potential to develop longterm harmful effects on our beings and we need to develop tools to combat this dynamic. Thinking and working this way is one way art processes can help us. I designed, built, and activated the tree into a large healing tool sculpture that can neutralize the effects of psychic vampirism and other unhealthy energetic connections that impact our wellbeing. To start, I stripped the bark off of an eleven-foot length of the white pine and my son helped me with his chainsaw to carve one end into a sharp point. The base is a prism made of two welded steel equilateral triangle structures that elevate and position the point of the sculpture directly at heart level maximizing its power to blast away the psychic and etheric connections one inadvertently accumulates throughout life. The sculpture is a giant cleansing machine. It targets etheric and energetic fields and tethers that become attached to ones outer bodies over time. It's meant to cleanse the outer bodies by obliterating unhealthy energies and connections, prohibit vampiric energies from sinking their fangs into the many dimensions of our psychic, physical, mental and emotional spheres, and to destroy the parasitic relationship dynamic vampires establish and maintain with our physical host bodies against our will and awareness. The sculpture is interactive. People were invited to stand in front of it, connect with its design, and have their own healing experience. ​ ​ MAY 1 - 29, 2021 ART/LIFE INSTITUTE 185 ABEEL ST. KINGSTON, NY ​ ​ OPENING MAY 1st 6:PM - 9:PM MID-MONTH RECEPTION - MAY 15th 6:PM - 9:PM CLOSING EVENT MAY 29th - 6:PM - 6:PM ​ ​

  • Nina A. Isabelle // Abstract Painting // 2016

    HOME ABOUT PROJECTS THREE PHASE CONTACT SEARCH More... PAINTINGS 2016 20-2016 22x30, oil paint on paper 19-2016 22x30, oil paint on paper 18-2016 22x30, oil paint on paper 17-2016 22x30, oil paint on paper 16-2016 22x30, oil paint on paper 15-2016 22x30, oil paint on paper 14-2016 22x30, oil paint on paper 13-2016 22x30, oil paint on paper 12-2016 22x30, oil paint on paper 11-2016 22x30, oil paint on paper 10-2016 22x30, oil paint on paper 9-2016 22x30, oil paint on paper 8-2016 22x30, oil paint on paper 7-2016 22x30, oil paint on paper 6-2016 22x30, oil paint on paper 5-2016 22x30, oil paint on paper 4-2016 22x30, oil paint on paper 3-2016 22x30, oil paint on paper 2-2016 22x30, oil paint on paper 1-2016 22x30, oil paint on paper 1/1

  • Nina A. Isabelle // Multidisciplinary Artist // Windmill Weapon

    HOME ABOUT PROJECTS THREE PHASE CONTACT SEARCH More... THE WINDMILL WEAPON MATRON MAY 2016 ​ ​ The Windmill Weapon Matron was built on May 12, 2016 and exhibited on June 3, 2016 as part of The New School's Social Justice exhibition with The Bushwick Collective. Materials include s awhorse, l umber, co nstruction m aterials, s pray p aint, h ouse p aint, a fghans, w eapons, b icycle p arts, y arn, p laster, t erra c otta, c hain. She is 90h x 53w x 45d. ​ She is a dangerous female machine expressing an active stance and aggressive posture. She no longer identifies as passive and has most recently emerged as an international threat. Based on a jumbled compilation of afghans, defunct bicycle parts, weapons, lumber, and chain her biographical narrative has been holographically reconfigured into a destructive biological machine made of woman’s time. While The Windmill Weapon Matron acknowledges her destructive approach as a natural response to her capacity for childbirth, she hesitates to dichotomize the two simply saying “Come, let me destroy you.” Utilizing a process of defiance The Windmill Weapon Matron has successfully developed a system capable of transforming eye-rolling, financial aid application trauma, stuffed animal over population, and hair pulling as well as other sensory input bull shit into a clean, renewable, and sustainable energy source for mothers. ​ ​ Nobody will lend her a chainsaw It is safe to breed with her She makes a mockery of science Her system is nervous ​ Her face is spinning When she was a virgin politicians killed and ate her She is secular Her system has calcified ​ She loves The Antichrist She birthed a female bastard She wan’t trained up the way she should go The system tries to destroy her ​ She has nothing to depart from Rabbits fear her She has been relieved of advantage Her system is unkillable ​ ​ ​ ​

  • VOICES & CHOICES | nina-isabelle

    HOME ABOUT PROJECTS THREE PHASE CONTACT SEARCH More... ​ The Ear, Brooklyn, NY August 23rd 2019 VOICES & CHOICES Referencing the ways misperceptions of fear, safety, danger, pain and the body create difficulty when voicing choices, this performance was an exercise in decision making, speaking up, and the difficulty that surrounds these things. I welded a steel cage for my body that was also a percussion instrument to be played on and off the body. I constructed and wore a garment of half visually reflexive material and half acoustically absorbent foam. The performance audio included partially told stories, inaudible language, and uncomfortable loud sounds. Curated by Polina Riabova and organized by Oya Damla at The Ear in Brooklyn, NY. Photos by Kira DeCoudres

  • MUSCULAR BONDING DOCUMENTS | nina-isabelle

    HOME ABOUT PROJECTS THREE PHASE CONTACT SEARCH More... MUSCULAR BONDING-PHOTO DOCUMENTS Adriana Disman, Nina Isabelle, Kaia Gilje, Beth Neff, Esther Neff, Edward Sharp M.A.R.S.H, St. Louis / Living Arts, Tulsa, OK ​ February 15 - March 5, 2018 ​ We traveled, lived, worked, and performed together for three weeks as a performance experiment conceived, initiated, and enforced by Esther Neff. On February 15, 2018 we drove from Panoply Performance Lab in Brooklyn, NY to M.A.R.S.H (Materializing & Activating Radical Social Habitus) in St. Louis, MO. We lived, worked, and ate together under strict and extreme circumstances, and then performed actions that were devised through collective manipulation to "materialize participant's structural realities" at The New Genre Art Festival at Living Arts Tulsa. ​ ​ ​ Kaia Gilje & Adriana Disman carry a sheet of dry wall up a staircase at M.A.R.S.H. (Materializing & Activating Radical Social Habitus) in St. Louis, MO. Photo: Nina Isabelle

  • MKULTRA / MIND CONTROL RABBIT

    HOME ABOUT PROJECTS THREE PHASE CONTACT SEARCH More... THE GIANT MK ULTRA MIND CONTROL RABBIT PLAYS MKUVM Duration: 14 min. 44 sec. Created February 2017 The MKUVM audio file functions as human behavior modification designed to disarm protective fear-based reality programming in order to insert dangerous encrypted emotional directives disguised as electronically modified and degraded voicemails from ex-lovers. The audio file utilizes technology developed by the CIA's MKUltra programs and experiments. ​ Tags: Electronic Harassment, Magnetoencephalography, Mind Control, Behavior Control, LSD, CIA,MK/Ultra, Physicochemical Investigations, Voicemail, Infrasound, Secure Room, Microwave Auditory Effect, Bobolocapnine, Atlanta Federal Penitentiary Prisoner Experiments, Richard Bandler Murder Trial, NLP, Neuro-linguistic Programming, Ex-Lovers, Energy Weapons, Sonic Weapons, Satan, Behavior Modification, The Manchurian Candidate, Brainwash, Backmasking, Giant MK Ultra Mind Control Rabbit This sculpture is designed to disarm protective fear-based reality program in order to insert dangerous encrypted information disguised as electronically modified and degraded voicemails from x-lovers. The sculpture utilizes technology developed by the CIA's MKUltra programs and experiments. Giant MK Ultra Mind Control Rabbit This sculpture is designed to disarm protective fear-based reality program in order to insert dangerous encrypted information disguised as electronically modified and degraded voicemails from x-lovers. The sculpture utilizes technology developed by the CIA's MKUltra programs and experiments. Giant MK Ultra Mind Control Rabbit This sculpture is designed to disarm protective fear-based reality program in order to insert dangerous encrypted information disguised as electronically modified and degraded voicemails from x-lovers. The sculpture utilizes technology developed by the CIA's MKUltra programs and experiments. Giant MK Ultra Mind Control Rabbit This sculpture is designed to disarm protective fear-based reality program in order to insert dangerous encrypted information disguised as electronically modified and degraded voicemails from x-lovers. The sculpture utilizes technology developed by the CIA's MKUltra programs and experiments.

  • Nina A. Isabelle // Abstract Painting // 2014

    Nina Isabelle HOME ABOUT PROJECTS THREE PHASE CONTACT SEARCH More... PAINTINGS 2015 60-2015, 22x30 60-2015, 22x30 59-2015, 22x30 59-2015, 22x30 58-2015 gouache, tempera, spray paint, acrylic on paper, 42x30 57-2015 gouache, tempera, spray paint, acrylic on paper, 42x30 frontalis.jpg Frontalis, 44x36, tempera on paper Go to link 56-201549_n gouache, tempera, spray paint, acrylic on paper, 42x30 55-2015 gouache, tempera, spray paint, acrylic on paper, 42x30 54-2015 gouache, tempera, spray paint, pencil on paper, 22x30 53-2015 gouache, tempera, spray paint, pencil on paper, 22x30 52-2015.jpg 52-2015, 24x30, oil & spray paint on canvas 51-2015.jpg 51-2015, 24x30, oil & spray paint on canvas 50-2015.jpg 50-2015, 24x30, oil & spray paint on canvas 49-2015.jpg 49-2015, 60x60, oil & spray paint on canvas 48-2015.jpg 48-2015, 72x72, oil & spray paint, brick twine, on canvas 47-2015.jpg 47-2015 87x87 46-2015.jpg 46-2015, 54x45, oil & spray paint on canvas 45-2015.jpg 45-2015, 54x45, oil & spray paint on canvas 44-2015.jpg 44-2015, oil, pastel, spray paint on canvas,, 54x45 43-2015-web.jpg 22x30, oil & spray paint on prepared paper occipital tempera on paper, 44x36 42-2015-web.jpg 22x30, oil & spray paint on prepared paper 41-2015-web.jpg 22x30, oil & spray paint on prepared paper 40-2015-web.jpg 22x30, oil & spray paint on prepared paper 39-2015-web.jpg 22x30, oil & spray paint on prepared paper 38-2015-2-web.jpg 22x30, oil & spray paint on prepared paper 37-2015-web.jpg 22x30, oil & spray paint on prepared paper hip.jpg Hip, 44x36, tempera on paper Go to link 36-2015-web.jpg oil & spray paint on canvas 32-2015 copy.jpg 24x24, oil & spray paint on masonite, 2015 30-2015 copy.jpg 24x24, oil & spray paint on masonite, 2015 35-2015 copy.jpg 22x30, oil & spray paint on masonite, 2015 34-2015 copy.jpg 24x24, oil & spray paint on masonite, 2015 33-2015 copy.jpg 24x24, oil & spray paint on masonite, 2015 31-2015 copy.jpg 29-2015-web.jpg lungs.jpg Lungs, 44x36, tempera on paper Go to link 28-2015 copy.jpg 40x18, oil & spray paint on masonite, 2015 27-2015 36x36, oil & spray paint on canvas, 2015 26-2015 36x36, oil & spray paint on canvas, 2015 25-2015 36x36, oil & spray paint on canvas, 2015 24-2015 48x48, oil on canvas, 2015 23-2015 48x48, oil on canvas, 2015 22-2015 48x48, oil on canvas, 2015 13-2015 18x24, oil & spray paint on masonite, 2015 21-2015 32x48, oil & spray paint on masonite 20-2015 36x36, oil & spray paint on canvas, 2015 19-2015 36x36, oil & spray paint on canvas, 2015 18-2015 36x36, oil & spray paint on canvas, 2015 17-2015 36x36, oil & spray paint on canvas, 2015 16-2015 36x36, oil & spray paint on canvas, 2015 1/2

  • Ft. Tilden / Temporary Ungovernable Zone / Nina A. Isabelle

    HOME ABOUT PROJECTS THREE PHASE CONTACT SEARCH More... FAMILY SOUNDS THE UNGOVERNABLE ZONE ​ FORT TILDEN ​ ANARKO ART LAB AND ARTI NYC ​ Nina A. Isabelle / The Ungovernable Zone at Fort Tilden Beach / NYC Fort Tilden is a defunct United States Military base now listed as NYC accessible ruins along the coast in Queens. ​ As an inquiry into motherhood, "Family Sounds" involved a site-responsive approach to the superimposition of an internal childhood landscape onto the defunct Ft. Tilden military base along with self-reflexive research referencing quantum nonlocality, interpretive movement, and the manipulation of physical material to align intention with action as evolved ritual. To start, I visited my childhood home in central Pennsylvania and collected audio samples like gunshots, piano, flute, and conversation. I also collected materials from an old family barn such as safety nets, camouflage burlap, industrial Velcro, and vinyl pieces. I used these materials to construct a giant robe and from the audio samples I melded a cacophonic multilayered soundscape as a way to create a tethered telepathic multigenerational connection. During the performance I blinded myself under the giant robe and bent my psyche into the constructed auditory and kinesthetic dimensions where I psychically postscribed childhood memories as a way to explore motherhood. One challenge of working this way is that documentation and integration of unlanguageable data uncovered along the way becomes difficult as perceptions expand beyond the framework of linear languages. ​ PHOTOS BY JAIME ROSENFELD JULY 8, 2017

  • WE CAN'T TELL WHAT WE'RE DOING | nina-isabelle

    HOME ABOUT PROJECTS THREE PHASE CONTACT SEARCH More... WE CAN'T TELL WHAT WE'RE DOING A recursive Installation event including painting, sculpture, performance, wearables, photo & video, explosions, and more. ​ HiLo Catskill, NY June 20 - August 26, 2018 ​ Through the superimposition of objects, photographs, video, action, painting, performance and narratives, We Can't Tell What We're Doing presses toward and hunts for a shift in meaning. This work is an inquiry and demonstration of a process that highjacks the past as a way to cultivate a future the way an AI robot might discover how to make sourdough bread out of itself. We Can't Tell What We're Doing is the discovery of a process that eats itself and then absorbs information from its own bowels. In attempt to manipulate spatial priority through ingesting inspections of object installation designed to illuminate internalized pockets of herniated or obstructed space where abstracted, impacted, and encrypted information and nutrient data might be stuck or diverted, this process reveals itself as a method that facilitates a solid flow of information that can be used to bind meaning and value to the motility of art in a regular way.

  • STAR HOUSE ARCHIVE | nina-isabelle

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  • 650 ml. OF LUNG PUSS | nina-isabelle

    HOME ABOUT PROJECTS THREE PHASE CONTACT SEARCH More... 650 ML. OF LUNG PUSS A seventeen-day artlife performance at Westchester Medical Center's Maria Fareri Children's Hospital in Valhalla, NY December 18, 2019 - January 3, 2020 650 ml. of Lung Puss was a seventeen-day performance initiated by a dire circumstance that ultimately demonstrated a quantum aspect of artlife processes. Influenced by my friend and artlife colleague Linda Mary Montano, the performance inspired a deeper understanding of a performance process that summons elemental energies from a nonlocational power source. These energies exist in a state of quantum superposition and can be programmed using intention, determination, focus, and sacrifice, to transmute pain, suffering, and trauma into tolerance, endurance, resilience, self awareness, control, forgiveness, grace, and gratitude. The performance began on December 18th when I carried my near lifeless and blue 94lb. daughter across a large, dark, silent, windy, and cold parking lot into the hospital's emergency room. The energies that fueled this difficult task were conjured from a deeply derived performative physical power cultivated by all mothers collectively throughout eternal time combined with the tension building from a deadlocked schism between my intuition and the medical authorities. In the past two days, we had been sent home from the emergency room and a pediatrician's office. Meanwhile, my daughter had developed sepsis from Scarlett Fever, Pneumonia, and a pleural effusion in her left lung. Our hospital performance engaged members of our close community, artlife collaborators and colleagues, friends and family, and the larger medical community of ambulance drivers, EMTs, emergency room attendants, nurses,doctors, phlebotomists, surgeons, lab and x-ray technicians, infectious disease specialists, sanitation specialists, medical administrators, and so on. Together, we collectively transformed into an unintentional ensemble performing actions together as our best selves in order to save a child's life. We embodied multiple and often simultaneous roles and embraced the fluctuating spaces between these modes. We performed as mothers, organizers, brothers, partners, distractors, whisperers of encouragement, visitors, tear swallowers, fear fighters, candle lighters, gift givers, keepers of tempers, story book readers, temperature takers, practitioners of patience, hand holders, phone callers, researchers, organizers, group texters, medicine givers, vomit bucket holders, comforters, food providers, errand runners, and healers. On the final day of our hospital performance, Linda texted "rest art!!!" to our group. We were finally able to go home, perform rest, and RESTART. This performance demonstrated that art and life function as entangled dimensions through subtle quantum artlife processes. We learned that approaches effective in art and performance dimensions are also effective in dimensions of life and other realities, and that intentions and actions occurring within one dimension simultaneously reflect, impact, and are made evident in multiple ways throughout multiple dimensions. Engaging with life circumstances through performative art mechanisms allows us to translate the diverse array of creative skills derived from our disciplined artlife practices, (our responsive, intuitive, reflexive, mindful, and conceptual abilities,) into cognitive modes of awareness that inform the new life patterns necessary to thrive as artists in life. Through this post-conceptualizing processes, we gain the ability to sidestep linear chronologies and reframe the concepts of our engagements post-performatively as a way to articulate with the personal mechanisms of awareness and control necessary to make meanings and choices that fortify our collective artlives in new and beneficial ways. List of Performers: Paul DeVincent, Ernest Goodmaw, Sylvia Hallibelle, Chris Hallman, Erik Hokanson, Eric Hurliman, Ulysses Hurliman, Bg Isabelle, Ed Isabelle, Kate Isabelle, Lou Isabelle, Louie Isabelle-DeVincent, Margie Isabelle, Nina Isabelle, Brian McCorkle, Jill McDermid, Paul McMahon, Linda Mary Montano, Ever Peacock, Mor Pipman, Valerie Sharp, Maureen Sharp, Luke Stence, Jennifer Zackin, and Havarah Zawaluk, many anonymous medical professionals, hospital workers, elementary school teachers, school nurses, community mothers and children.

N I N A  A. I S A B E L L E 

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