About

Artist’s Statement

Drawing threads from daily life, I’m a deep-rooted chronicler of the significant and the mundane, marking time, and holding space to allow for reflection, authentic and sometimes difficult conversations.

I create dynamic mixed media drawings, paintings, and three-dimensional objects as time capsules. Expressive and entangled lines, colors, and cascading textures are interwoven as seemingly unrelated elements come together as an intimate journal to find our interconnectedness.

Touchstones and milestones such as the COVID-19 pandemic, children leaving the nest, peace and healing found in nature, especially water, and the shepherding of my mother through her final days are all part of my ongoing visual narrative that reflects on the inevitable seasons of change and our beautiful and fragile existence.

Family, friends, and community are at the core of who I am and the work I do as an artist, advocate, and educator. Voted craziest laugh in 8th grade, I cry easily at senseless beauty, injustice, and cruelty, never owned a poker face, can swear like a sailor, and am forever making art from the heart.

Nanci Hersh - About
Nanci Hersh - In The Studio

Nanci Hersh

Nanci Hersh is a contemporary mixed-media artist whose work is informed by the experiences, relationships, and places in her life. Her two-dimensional work, as well as her sculptures and installations, are poetic explorations of the grace, beauty and fragility of our lives.

Nanci is also a curator, illustrator, educator, arts advocate and former Executive Director of the Delaware Institute for the Arts in Education. Her Unmasked: Portraits from the Zoom Room series was exhibited in 2022 at the Nilson Gallery, Monmouth Museum, New Jersey.

Additionally, her work has been exhibited throughout the United States including:

  • “Farthest from Ordinary” and “Riverfront 20/20” at The Delaware Contemporary
  • “50 States/200 Artists” at the Museum of Encaustic Art in Santa Fe, NM
  • “Eons Beyond the Rib” at Seraphin Gallery in Philadelphia, PA
  • “PaperWork” at the Trenton City Museum at Ellarslie
  • “The Demoiselles Revisited” at Francis M. Naumann Fine Art, NYC
  • Multiple solo exhibitions in PA, NJ, DE, and HI.

Nanci has received numerous honors including three purchase awards from the State Foundation of Culture and the Arts, Hawai’i, and three Leeway Foundation Art & Change Grants. She recently completed and installed “Elemental Flow”, a commissioned work of 20 paintings at Barbacane, Thornton, and Company in Wilmington, DE. Her work is included in the Public Collections of Museum of Encaustic Art, Johnson & Johnson, Leland Portland Cement, and OSI Pharmaceuticals to name a few.

With her cousin and author, Ellen McVicker, Nanci illustrated and co-created the children’s book Butterfly Kisses and Wishes on Wings: When someone you love has cancer… a hopeful, helpful book for kids. The book has sold over 15,000 copies and is a resource and comfort to children and their families around the world.

For more about Nanci, click here to download her CV.

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