This week we welcome Nia Blue, a painter and educator based in Brooklyn. Blue’s work focuses on documenting issues around health care in the U.S. and the impact it has on African American experiences. Blue earned a bachelor’s degree in health sciences with a minor in studio art from James Madison University in Harrisonburg, VA. She has exhibited at Artworks Gallery in Virginia, as well as Blue Space Gallery, Mriya Gallery and Greenpoint Gallery in New York.
She received a Segal Award after completing a service year with AmeriCorps as a resident teaching artist. Blue currently works as a teaching artist and educator in NYC.
Blue aims to encapsulate human connection, and the perpetual dialogue between our internal thoughts and external expressions. Her intention is to work with a medium that allows for meditation on shapes and colors that evoke emotion within a scene. Her artistic approach, part autobiography, part collective memory, centers the often unspoken narratives experienced by Black women in contemporary society. Blue uses mixed media paint and cold wax because the materials allow the reimagination of life through rough texture, invented palettes, and the abstraction of perspective.
Blue’s pieces, brimming with strong and sometimes confrontational symbology, critically examine the ethos of American health care, subsequently framing a more human-centered perspective on the politics that envelop it. Representation of African Americans’ connection to the U.S. healthcare system in art has historically been portrayed in usually negative terms. Yet Blue’s work seeks to broaden this to be more inclusive of both the individual’s perspective and of data regarding change in the community.
See more of Blue’s work on her website and Instagram.
See more of our Artist of the Week profiles here.
