ARTIST STATEMENT
Through a 21st century feminist lens my work considers historical, contemporary and metaphysical narratives in describing a personal reaction to events I experience and witness. Opposites of hard/soft, female/male in materials and function are used to describe intentions and actions. Complicated situations are distilled to concrete tangible forms that question our acceptance of who acts and who tells the stories.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Nancy VanKanegan is a multidisciplinary artist currently living in Chicago, Illinois. She earned a BFA from Illinois Wesleyan Univ and an MA in Interdisciplinary Arts and Education from Columbia College Chicago.
Spending almost a decade in Houston, Texas allowed her to easily travel through the SW U.S. and Mexico. In Houston she worked with theaters and dancers on and off the stage, began her teaching career, and exhibited and performed in and around artist run spaces.
While raising two children in Chicago, she worked with Art Resources in Teaching travelling to CPS schools around Chicago teaching art, often in partnership with the Art Institute of Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art and the Field Museum. Yoga was always a part of her adult life and in the mid 1990s she began to teach yoga to college students, seniors, children.
Her art involves making and doing inspired by dreams, travels and yoga, combining a variety of media and materials. These works address personal and social enigmas and narratives derived from myth, legend and ritual as they weave into contemporary life. Much of the work includes specific reference to the human body.
She has exhibited and performed locally, nationally and internationally. At present she teaches art and yoga courses at Columbia College, Northeastern Illinois University and DePaul University.
© Nancy VanKanegan