HOME ABOUT PROJECTS More... BEAST CONJURING at Paul McMahon's MOTHERSHIP Woodstock, NY January 16-21, 2018 On January 21, 2018 performers at Paul McMahon's Mothership in Woodstock, NY work to conjure the sea beast from the book of Revelation. Nina Isabelle at The Mothership The Beast at Mothership Lorene Bouboushian, Nina Isabelle, Brian McCorkle, Linda Mary Montano, Ever Peacock, Miles Pflanz, and Jennifer Zackin. Photo by Amelia Iaia Miles Pflanz at The Mothership The Beast at Mothership Lorene Bouboushian, Nina Isabelle, Brian McCorkle, Linda Mary Montano, Ever Peacock, Miles Pflanz, and Jennifer Zackin. Photo by Amelia Iaia Linda Mary Montano The Beast at Mothership Lorene Bouboushian, Nina Isabelle, Brian McCorkle, Linda Mary Montano, Ever Peacock, Miles Pflanz, and Jennifer Zackin. Photo by Amelia Iaia Nina Isabelle at The Mothership7509 The Beast at Mothership Lorene Bouboushian, Nina Isabelle, Brian McCorkle, Linda Mary Montano, Ever Peacock, Miles Pflanz, and Jennifer Zackin. Photo by Amelia Iaia NAI_7452 Nina Isabelle, Ever Peacock The Beast at Mothership Lorene Bouboushian, Nina Isabelle, Brian McCorkle, Linda Mary Montano, Ever Peacock, Miles Pflanz, and Jennifer Zackin. Photo by Amelia Iaia Beast Conjuring KILL Paper Collage 22x30 (rubberized paint, gouache, ash, enamel, watercolor) By Nina Isabelle The Beast at The Mothership The Beast at Mothership Lorene Bouboushian, Nina Isabelle, Brian McCorkle, Linda Mary Montano, Ever Peacock, Miles Pflanz, and Jennifer Zackin. Photo by Amelia Iaia The Beast at The Mothership The Beast at Mothership Lorene Bouboushian, Nina Isabelle, Brian McCorkle, Linda Mary Montano, Ever Peacock, Miles Pflanz, and Jennifer Zackin. Photo by Amelia Iaia Nina Isabelle at The Mothership The Beast at Mothership Lorene Bouboushian, Nina Isabelle, Brian McCorkle, Linda Mary Montano, Ever Peacock, Miles Pflanz, and Jennifer Zackin. Photo by Amelia Iaia Nina Isabelle at The Mothership The Beast at Mothership Lorene Bouboushian, Nina Isabelle, Brian McCorkle, Linda Mary Montano, Ever Peacock, Miles Pflanz, and Jennifer Zackin. Photo by Amelia Iaia Nina Isabelle at The Mothership The Beast at Mothership Lorene Bouboushian, Nina Isabelle, Brian McCorkle, Linda Mary Montano, Ever Peacock, Miles Pflanz, and Jennifer Zackin. Photo by Amelia Iaia Nina Isabelle at The Mothership The Beast at Mothership Lorene Bouboushian, Nina Isabelle, Brian McCorkle, Linda Mary Montano, Ever Peacock, Miles Pflanz, and Jennifer Zackin. Photo by Amelia Iaia Nina Isabelle, Lorene Bouboushian The Beast at Mothership Lorene Bouboushian, Nina Isabelle, Brian McCorkle, Linda Mary Montano, Ever Peacock, Miles Pflanz, and Jennifer Zackin. Photo by Amelia Iaia Lorene Bouboushian at The Mothership The Beast at Mothership Lorene Bouboushian, Nina Isabelle, Brian McCorkle, Linda Mary Montano, Ever Peacock, Miles Pflanz, and Jennifer Zackin. Photo by Amelia Iaia Lorene & Nina at The Mothership The Beast at Mothership Lorene Bouboushian, Nina Isabelle, Brian McCorkle, Linda Mary Montano, Ever Peacock, Miles Pflanz, and Jennifer Zackin. Photo by Amelia Iaia Brian McCorkle at The Mothership The Beast at Mothership Lorene Bouboushian, Nina Isabelle, Brian McCorkle, Linda Mary Montano, Ever Peacock, Miles Pflanz, and Jennifer Zackin. Photo by Amelia Iaia Nina Isabelle at The Mothership The Beast at Mothership Lorene Bouboushian, Nina Isabelle, Brian McCorkle, Linda Mary Montano, Ever Peacock, Miles Pflanz, and Jennifer Zackin. Photo by Amelia Iaia Nina Isabelle and Lorene Bouboushian The Beast at Mothership Lorene Bouboushian, Nina Isabelle, Brian McCorkle, Linda Mary Montano, Ever Peacock, Miles Pflanz, and Jennifer Zackin. Photo by Amelia Iaia Bouboushian, Isabelle, Peacock The Beast at Mothership Lorene Bouboushian, Nina Isabelle, Brian McCorkle, Linda Mary Montano, Ever Peacock, Miles Pflanz, and Jennifer Zackin. Photo by Amelia Iaia The "Beast Conjuring" performance intended to conjure and kill the sea beast from the book of Revelation. A group of artists and performers were invited to simultaneously interweave their own processes and intentions as a way to generate energies that might be focused toward the common goal of beast conjuring. Together the group worked to build and maximizing the physical, sensory, and psychic spaces that bind the internal and external dimensions of awareness through performative modes of sound making, movement, object construction, and ceremonial-like gestures in a process that became an inquiry into how a metaphoric conjure-and-kill scenario might translate or become useful in a literal dimension where such things are less possible-seeming. "Beast Conjuring" was performed within an installation including ten hand-fabricated crowns, ten cedar root horns dug from local woods, hand painted imagery of the seven-headed ten-horned beast, a suspended hand-sewn white linen angel, a reconstructed domestic scene from the home of an ex-evangelical and a giant edible Whore of Babylon cake as bait. Lorene Bouboushian read personal text and improvised sound and movement, Linda Mary Montano performed a holy water blessing as Chicken Linda, Brian McCorkle produced sound using a Saxophone and his specially designed Beast Box, (a noise machine built with raspberry-pi based software that cast neural nets for soul retrieval,) Jennifer Zackin engaged in a task-based performance to weave a beast trapping vortex, Ever Peacock and I performed an acoustic rendition of Larry Norman's *You've been Left Behind* thirteen consecutive times all awash in Miles Pflanz's video remake of the 2014 American Christian apocalyptic thriller film *Left Behind* (based on the bestselling novels by Tim Lahaye and Jerry B. Jenkins) that reframes durational performance art as post-apocalyptic living. It's difficult to gauge the effectiveness of a performance conglomerate like "Beast Conjuring" due to its potential to be made to mean multiple things by participants and observers and the ripples of their combined experiences and energies. At the same time, the ability of a situation to evade meaning is exciting. No literal beast popped out of the floor, no politicians were struck dead and there weren't any recognizable or even loosely associated repercussive events of cosmic significance but the usefulness and appeal of such a process seems to unfurl over time in a circular and translucent way that generates unanswerable questions and hints at the possibilities and potential of less realistic thinking and doing.

Nina A. Isabelle is a multidisciplinary artist working with abstract painting, performance art, video, photography, sound, and sculpture. HOME ABOUT PROJECTS HYPOTHETICAL PERFORMANCE TWO THINGS CRACK IN HALF WEST HALL OPEN STUDIO RINGING IN EARS PSYCHIC SELF DEFENSE SCULPTURE IMAGINED PERFORMANCE STORYTIME THE BODY DESCRIBES ITSELF MOSS ROCK CAGE TEN THOUSAND OBJECTIVES VOICES & CHOICES REMARKABLE NEW LOCATIONS ILLUMINATING INTANGIBLES SHAPE OF A FEELING SEEMRIPPER WE CAN'T TELL WHAT WE'RE DOING NEW SITUATIONS FORCE YOURSELF TO BE GOOD CITIZEN PARTICIPATION HYMN WARP TRANSDUCER VIDEO MANIFESTATION SYSTEM VMS USER ARCHIVE BEAST CONJURING BLACK BEDROOM CYBORGS & GENDER SHIRT FACTORY CENTENIAL CAVE GIRL FAMILY SOUNDS JUST SITUATIONS EXPERIMENTAL ARCHERY MOTHERING YARD WORK / YARD STUDIO THE GIANT DRESS OUT IN THE ZONE / ANARCHIST ART FAIR THE FABRIC OF WOMEN'S SPACE-TIME UNITY AT THE LACE MILL HILO CATSKILL OPENING BANGKOK UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL STAGES PROPERTY / ROMAN SUSAN MKUVM / MIND CONTROL RABBIT THE EUCHARIST MACHINE SALIENT MEMORY MANIPULATING PENDANT LAMP PAINTING 2017 TIME TRAVEL RESEARCH JSP PLUMBING COMMISSION SAN DIEGO ART INSTITUTE JOB // F.A.G. CZONG INSTITUTE / ARTISTS & LOCATION MOCK THE CHASM UMEWE INC. ANIMAL MAXIMALISM THE GIANT WEED WEB JURNQUIST COLORING BOOK SHOW IN BERLIN HYPERACTIVE INSTALLATION WOODSTOCK LIBRARY CHAIR LOCATIONAL TRAUMA TRANSFORMING TRAP WINDMILL WEAPON MATRON Q:ENTITY / Q:INFORMATICUS SUPERFUND RE-VISIONING PROJECT CERTAIN SOLUTIONS MOTHER VS. GOD SILENT MASS GENERATOR PAINTING 2016 C O D E ART/LIFE KINGSTON - CLARA & NINA THE PAIN PROJECT FEEDING THE ENTITY PAINTING 2015 THE RANDOM COMMUNITY GENERATOR HANDMADE BOOK SILVER GELATIN PRINTS (1989-1999) INTERVIEWS ACTIVATING PERCEPTION ARTICULACTION VIDEO CONTACT SOLVERMATH PHASE ONE - FEBRUARY 24, 2023 TWO THINGS CRACK IN HALF FEBRUARY 20, 2023 RPI OPEN STUDIO DECEMBER 2022 LISTENING MEDIUMS OCTOBER 2022 RINGING IN EARS OCTOBER 2022 LIVESTREAM JULY 2022 PSYCHIC SELF DEFENSE DECEMBER 2020 - GIANT WOODEN STAKE FOR KILLING ENERGETIC VAMPIRES IMAGINED PERFORMANCE STORYTIME WITH IV CASTELLANOS PARA\\EL PERFORMANCE SPACE FEBRUARY 2021 WHAT THE BODY KNOWS AUGUST 2020 MOSS ROCK CAGE APRIL 2020 TEN THOUSAND OBJECTIVES MARCH 2020 INTERVIEW BY LINDA MARY MONTANO FEBRUARY 2020 VOICES & CHOICES - THE EAR - BROOKLYN, NY AUGUST 2019 REMARKABLE NEW LOCATIONS - CX SILVER GALLERY - BRATTLEBORO, VT JUNE 2019 ILLUMINATING INTANGIBLES - PARA\\EL PERFORMANCE SPACE - BROOKLYN MARCH 2019 SHAPE OF A FEELING 2018-PRESENT SEEMRIPPER - ELIZABETH FOUNDATION - NYC OCTOBER 2018 LANDLINES - CX SILVER GALLERY - BRATTLEBORO, VT AUGUST 2018 WE CAN'T TELL WHAT WE'RE DOING - HiLO GALLERY - CATSKILL, NY AUGUST 2018 NEW SITUATIONS - THREE PHASE CENTER - STONE RIDGE, NY JUNE 2018 WHISTLE PORTRAITS - HiLO GALLERY - CATSKILL, NY JUNE 2018 FORCE YOURSELF TO BE GOOD, BROOKLYN, NY MAY 2018 CITIZEN PARTICIPATION WITH FEMINIST ART GROUP AT ABC NO RIO / BULLET SPACE IN NYC MAY 2018 HYMN WARP TRANSDUCER AT BEDSTOCK - NINE HERKIMER IN BROOKLYN APRIL 2018 PIANO PORTRAITS - HiLO GALLERY - CATSKILL, NY FEBRUARY 2018

HOME ABOUT PROJECTS 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

HOME ABOUT PROJECTS More... ARTIST & LOCATION CZONG INSTITUTE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART GIMPO, KOREA October 2016 CICA MUSEUM

HOME ABOUT PROJECTS More... THE VIDEO MANIFESTATION SYSTEM A METHODOLOGY FOR MANUFACTURING NEW REALITIES Released by HUMAN TRASH DUMP on ARCHIVE.ORG NOVEMBER 2017 Download Video Manifestation System from HUMAN TRASH DUMP here: https://archive.org/details/htdc005 (CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE VMS USER ARCHIVE ) Free download: The VMS User Manual INTRODUCTION The Video Manifestation System offers users a radicalized system to build and shape reality. By interlacing specific VMS concepts like user approach, intention, perception, and language with the Multidimensional Human Perception Apparatus, VMS offers users a tool to build useful realities while simultaneously eliminating outmoded corporeality. VMS transforms beneficial etherial notions, wishes, dreams or ideas into tangible reality. By psychically entangling multiple abstractions extrapolated from the experimental statistics and algebraic concepts that have preceded non-locality, quantum teleportation, and superdense coding, VMS aligns intention with action to produce a compact five-minute digital video capable of manufacturing realities. Complete with prescriptive application suggestions for maximum results, users enjoy a simple ten-step interface with infinite reality building possibilities. VMS incorporates a biopsychospiritual approach to reality building which expands upon a model of human cognition developed by neuroscientist Karl Pribram and physicist David Bohm called the holonomic brain theory that describes the brain as a holographic storage network. By stretching the boundaries of the holonimic brain to include the holonomic energy bodies, VMS is able to access The Multidimensional Human Perception Apparatus (MHPA,) an invisible system capable of transducing the seen and unseen systems of the inner and outer holonomic energy bodies. Shaped like an amorphic electronic cloud, and made up of subatomic elementary particles like tau neutrinos within and surrounding the body, the MHPA remains unbound by namable physical structures and is key to rediscovering the reality manufacturing capabilities once central to human functioning. Prolonged interface with the slow and heavy dimension of physical reality has jammed up and run down the MHPA. Over time, central manifestation components of the MHPA, such as gut biomes and subquantum receptive structures within the cerebral spinal fluid surrounding the brain and brainstem, have become ineffective. VMS works to restore the MHPA functions by engaging users in a process intended to distract the conscious linear logic mind, effectively creating an intentional feedback loop. Building reality begins with perception. With the conscious linear logic mind out of the way, the inner workings of the MHPA are allowed to surface and be directed toward reality building ventures. Designed to facilitate singular and multiple aspects of both internal and external realities through its micro/macro input manifold, VMS is an effective tool for revising a broad range of issues and circumstances ranging from internal personal mental and emotional struggles like boredom, lethargy, dyscalculia, co-dependance, and heartbreak to physical conditions like high blood pressure, whip lash, sciatica, poison ivy, aphasia, temporal lobe epilepsy, and broken bones. VMS also makes it possible to address complex problems within a community or family dynamic such as authoritarianism, prolonged bitter quarrels, dishonesty, and miscommunications and is also a powerful instrument for reshaping dysfunctional pieces of corporeal reality not limited to broken waste oil burners, miscalibrated stopwatches, busted serpentine belts, misaligned zippers or stuck elevators. Larger external dangers such as injustices due to the abuse of political or economic power systems like racism, genocide, domestic violence, mass shootings, Satanic cults, and violent regimes have also proved pliant. As an interface, VMS connects humans to powerful forces of nature and offers a way to transform destructive energies resulting from disasters like tsunamis, pollution, wild fires, blight, drought, crop damage, nuclear war, sink holes and volcanos into a generative force fueled by natural and cosmic elements that can be directed into new realities or dispersed as weather phenomena. Users are encouraged to think galactic. VMS has been proven useful for wrangling cosmic energies, entities as well as astral bodies like planets, moons, black and worm holes, comets, solar storms, and supernovas.

HOME ABOUT PROJECTS More... CERTAIN SOLUTIONS FOR DISSOLVING PROBLEMS CZONG INSTITUTE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART GIMPO, KOREA / AUGUST , 2016 Certain Solutions For Dissolving Problems August 21, 2016 8:39 Certain Solutions For Dissolving Problems compiles digital imagery, audio, photography, and writing from The Superfund Re-Visioning Project into a video that addresses the failure of language and processes used to confront social and political issues such as environmental contamination. Using subtle neurolinguistic programming tactics combined with inaudible frequencies this video implants the idea of psychic reprogramming as a possible solution to artistic process displacement and underutilized artistic visions within the financial and political structures intended to remediate environmental contamination. In September 2016 Certain Solutions for Dissolving Problems was exhibited in an exhibition called Artist and Location at The Czong Institute For Contemporary Art in Gimpo, Korea.

Nina A. Isabelle is a multidisciplinary artist working with abstract painting, performance art, video, photography, sound, and sculpture. HOME ABOUT PROJECTS More... HYPERACTIVE INSTALLATION JUNE 4 2017

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

The Random Community Generator - a social experiment by Nina Isabelle Nina Isabelle HOME ABOUT PROJECTS More... RCG1-1 18x26, oil on canvas RCG1-2 18x26, oil on canvas RCG1-3 18x26, oil on canvas RCG1-4 18x26, oil on canvas RCG1-5 18x26, oil on canvas RCG1-6 18x26, oil on canvas RCG1-7 RCG1-8 18x26, oil on canvas RCG1-9 18x26, oil on canvas RCG1-10 18x26, oil on canvas RCG1-11 18x26, oil on canvas RCG1-12 18x26, oil on canvas RCG1-13 18x26, oil on canvas RCG1-14 18x26, oil on canvas RCG1-15 18x26, oil on canvas The Random Community Generator February 24, 2014 by Matthew Gioia The Random Community Generator is an interactive project designed to generate a random community of 15 people who, by either purchasing or bartering for one of the pieces in the series, agree to become acquainted with the owners of the paintings which come before and after theirs in the series. The series is itself a “community” of 15 visceral and boldly colored 18x26 oil paintings. Energetic and defiantly opaque, the paintings contain aggressive elements which thrust themselves off the painted surface, longing for release into the third dimension. Discreet rivers and pockets of luminous color saturate the canvas beneath criss-crossing paths of uncertain trajectory. Yet despite their apparent abstraction, there is a creeping sense that the paintings are actually a concrete rendering of the vertiginous tumult of impulse, image, and ancient emotion that swirls just below the more or less ordered surface of human consciousness; the tumult which divides the world from our knowledge of it. Produced as one massive painting by hanging 15 canvases in a tight row and applying elements in a sequential manner from beginning to end, the series expresses varying degrees of chance and manipulation which interplay within each piece as well as throughout the collective whole. Thus, the paintings are separate yet inextricably linked by elements which move ecstatically across multiple canvases. Taken as a whole, the project is a map of a mind, which is - in the first and the last instance - communal, complex and messy, organized by the logic of dreams. The interactive component of the series is laid out as a social and interpersonal experiment designed to facilitate an examination of the perception of separateness and identity. First, the project asks, “can a randomly generated or accidental community be as meaningful - or even more meaningful than a community based on occupation, convenience, interest, or faith?" And then the Community Generating begins dealing in ideas, and tips into abstraction. By challenging our stagnant definitions of community, the project asks us to look at the division between our private and public life, between the kind of community we would most like to be a part of and the kind of community we actually create, and between the people we are, the people we think we are, and the people other people think we are. Indeed, the Random Community Generator, by its process of creation as much as by its experimental distribution plan, generates profound questions: is there any such thing as a distinct individual? What comprises a person? How do people overlap, echo, mirror, and create each other, consciously and otherwise? The paintings will disband, but could it ever be possible to really know any one of them without knowing the others?

Nina A. Isabelle is a multidisciplinary artist working with abstract painting, performance art, video, photography, sound, and sculpture. HOME ABOUT PROJECTS More... THE WOODSTOCK LIBRARY FLOATING BOUNCY CHAIR JUNE 2016 For the 85th Annual Woodstock Library Fair Hudson Valley artists were commissioned to repurpose a heap of old metal folding chairs for a silent auction to benefit the library. I made this floating bouncy chair using studio scraps and discount bungee cords from P&T Surplus in Kingston, NY. Fellow artist and Vice President of Friends of The Woodstock Library Michael Hunt says “It's the coolest motherfucking chair.”

IV Castellanos Reads an imagined performance written by Nina Isabelle as part of IV's Imagined Performance Storytime series at Para\\el Performance Space in Brooklyn, NY on February 12, 2021. HOME ABOUT PROJECTS More... IMAGINED PERFORMANCE STORYTIME WITH IV CASTELLANOS Imagined Performance written by Nina Isabelle and read live on Instagram by IV Castellanos @iv_castellanos Para\\el Performance Space February 12, 2021 READ BY IV CASTELLANOS: You will be guided through a sequence of events that have been systematically untethered from any and all singular, multiple, or quantifiable physical locations. Any and all astral, psychic, temporal, and somatic pins have been removed from the fabric of time. All known and unknown extradimensions will be accessible to you. Some of the events may feel familiar to you. You might recognize the radiator in this space. You might be familiar with the sound of my voice or the way this space expands and contracts at will. Sometimes this space is as large as a destroyed production room of an old abandoned textile factory with remains of broken equipment The person sat down. The seated person had an idea and hoped to untangle it by sitting down. They started to speak out loud- "I have an idea and I want to sit down." They didn't say the next part out loud but only thought it to themself inside their own quiet mind - "I'm not sure where to start." The next part involves the person discussing with themselves what they believe they know about three things; beginnings, middles, and ends. A lot of time goes by. The person sits and thinks. Hello. Welcome to Imagined Performance. My name is IV Castellanos and today I will be reading a performance imagined by Nina Isabelle. This performance starts right now: at 8:17 pm on February 12, 2021 and will end precisely at 8:32 pm. All participants are asked to please defocus their perception using whatever breathing or other techniques they find useful. Be with your laptops but not of them. Hold your phones loosely or not at all. Connect through disconnecting. Believe that you know what this means. I will continue speaking during your process. Please know that it is not necessary for you to understand what I am saying. I am moving my mouth. I am vibrating my vocal cords in a certain way that I have found useful. There are many sounds happening where I am. I can hear traffic. A radiator is hissing. Sometimes people's boots are stomping up and down staircases. The walls here are thin. The sound of passersby breathing and conversing and slogging through cold, ice, and snow. While I continue to speak, please list the sounds you notice in your environment. Speak these sounds out loud to yourself where you are now. In this way, we can be together through our differences. You may whisper, yell, or use any variety of tone or volume you choose. As a disclaimer, please know that I will be recording you through an invisible and unreal mechanism. In order to indicate that you agree, please either respond or remain unresponsive. Please continue to focus on the sounds of your environment and continue to speak them out loud. I will now begin to describe the performance I am sitting here at Parallel Performance Space in Brooklyn, NY. I am speaking into the camera on my computer. Here in the space with me, are sixteen audience members. They are each wearing a new mask prototype made of woven atmospheric particles interlaced through a selective ionic process that traps virus particles using infra-aural radio webs emitted by the human ear. This new technology makes it possible for us to once again be together in small spaces, to hug one another, and sit next to each other with our knees and elbows periodically touching by accident as we move. Everyone here is silently focused on the performance, blinking and slowly shifting their posture. They are listening to the space and my voice. Their phones have all been silenced. Now they are watching me light a candle. Some of them are nervous because the flame of the candle is reaching all the way up to the ceiling. There is a thin ribbon of fire with a black smoke tip that is drawing something out on the ceiling with a line of soot. Some of the audience members are acting as if they are not surprised or nervous. They're keeping their faces very still and devoid of expression. Some of them are trying to photograph the tall ribbon of flame with their phones. One person makes a short video for their Instagram story. Some others are looking back and forth at one another, wondering what will happen and waiting. The symbol drawn on the ceiling by flame is so far unrecognizable. It might be a slanted reflected cursive letter Q, an off kilter house, or the runic shape of Perthro reversed. No one can tell. For a while, people watch and wonder. Time passes. A thick hemp rope unfurls down from the ceiling and drops down to the floor with a heavy thud. At this point, a person comes into the space from the street through the front door, a latecomer. They're trying to be small, silent and unnoticed out of politeness for the performance. Right now, as I'm speaking, this person is sitting down in the corner trying to appear quickly as if they are being observant and contemplative and they're pretending not to notice this reference to them. They want to appear as if they know what is happening. They are also wearing the new mask prototype. I want them to feel comfortable. Now I will play back for you the sounds I have been recording of you speaking at home. Please listen closely: SPEAKING SOUNDS Nina Isabelle 00:00 / 04:52 While this loud sound is playing, I place a large transparent vat of diesel fuel in the center of the space. It is a beautiful transparent pink fluid. People are stunned at its beauty. How can such a toxic substance be so beautiful? Everyone wonders. The ribbon of flame is still tickling the ceiling. I use my hand to bend it down toward the vat of diesel. The black tip of smoke connects with the surface of the fluid. Some people seem nervous because diesel fuel is flammable, however not combustible. Many people are not aware of this distinction. The ribbon of flame slowly dips into the vat and begins to grow in size. People are squeezing their faces in fear and inhaling through their clenched teeth. Some are starting to shield their faces and ears with their hands. No one heads for the door. The intensity of the fire ribbon grows and grows until finally a figure emerges from the pink flaming liquid. It's a full size human wearing a green robe. The robed diesel person floats toward the radiator and, crouching down, they begin to turn the knob, opening the radiator further and further and further. A glowing purple ring of light grows with each turn. Once the purple ring of light reaches six feet in diameter, I blow out the candle. I walk into the purple ring of light, stand dramatically frozen for a moment, turn, and reach for the person closest to me to join me and they do. The person is wearing a thick wool plaid skits and has a large pile of blond curls stacked up on top of their head. They have a felt cloak with a large golden leaf broach pinned to their lapel. Underneath this, they're wearing a neoprene shirt - a rash guard like surfer's wear with a giant plastic zipper. Together we enter the portal and vanish. The green robed figure takes out a bucket of grey paint and a paint brush and, crouching down slowly, they begin to paint the plywood floor. They are groaning and wailing and complaining loudly about the floor, about how many times they have had to do this in the past and how each time, it never seems to matter. Someone always spills taffy or blood or resin and it always needs to be scraped up or sanded or covered over. They continue to paint the floor and cry. This lasts for over twenty minutes. Their tears sizzle as they drip and mix with the grey paint. Tiny smolders of atomized paint-tears begin to float throughout the room with a small being encapsulated in each floating speck. They all cry out and their own tiny tears begin to rain down on the performance attendees. The diesel fumes mix with the tear droplets and the people begin to feel light headed and nauseous. Some people try to escape but the door is jammed shut. Everyone wants to go home, but they can't. They're stuck. Please, now, if you will, shift your awareness from the sounds in your atmosphere to the physical objects in your environment. Please speak the names of the objects you see around you. Say these things out loud. Say the colors of the objects. Be as descriptive as possible. Say the size of the objects. Describe their textures and whatever other particulars you notice or feel. For example, you might say: Beige Chenille sofa. Small cigarette stains. 5 x 8 deep red wool handmade Turkish Bokhara rug. Regular sized half eaten bowl of cereal. Crystal chandelier missing three light bulbs. Green plastic 2.5 gallon bucket with mop water. four square inches of peeling orange paint. Tiny chocolate fingerprints on thick mauve polyester drapes. Again- you are being recorded and you agree to this. I will now play the real-time recording of your collective voices. SPEAKING OBJECTS Nina Isabelle 00:00 / 02:24 While you continue speaking and listening to yourselves speaking together, please simultaneously turn one-third of your awareness back to the performance at hand. We are here at Parallel Performance Space. The performance attendees are uncomfortable and scared. A glowing spot begins to reveal itself on the ceiling between the cryptic soot symbol and the hemp rope. Several non-human entities start to slip through the glowing spot and descend into the space by sliding down the hemp rope. The beings are translucent, faceless, and silent. They emit an overwhelming feeling of love, safety, hope, transformation, and understanding. The odors of diesel fumes, soot, mop water and paint fumes dissolve and are replaced by the smells of lilac, hyacinth, roses, warm potato leek soup with chives, and chamomile tea. Warm local raw organic creamed honey bubbles up from the floor and everyone covers themselves in it. It's amazing. The performance attendees are now bursting into tears of joy and relief. They now know in their bones that everything is perfect everywhere in the world and for the first time in a long while, they feel hopeful. The glowing beings begin to hand out the most amazing cupcakes. Everyone is happy and hugging and eating cake together. Here is what it the space sounds like now: IMAGINED PERFORMANCE FINALE Nina Isabelle 00:00 / 03:24 In the mean time, The radiator begins to hum and the sound begins to grow into the harmonic sound of a thousand electronic angels breathing in unison and every pipe organ on earth begins to sing together. Bells are ringing in the clouds and the purple portal returns with a beautiful hum. I step out of it along with the performance attendee who joined me, and the floating green robed figure. We hold each other's hands and take a big dramatic bow. This is the end of the performance. People clap and clap and whoop, hollar, and whistle. Everyone is so happy. No one wants to leave. People want to debrief. What just happened? How can we explain this? One person says they saw their ancestors. Another person miraculously figured out why their car wouldn't start. One person's psoriasis vanished completely. Another realized how much their mother loved them. Yet another discovered the whereabouts of their lost passport. A few realized it was time for a career change. Now, people are outside smoking and mingling on the sidewalk. All the lights are extra sparkly, everything looks clear and bright. The air is crisp and clean like it hasn't been in years. Some people are starting to head home. People are walking arm in arm and gazing in each other's eyes. We start to clean up the space and get ready for bed. It was a good night. A performance like no other.

HOME ABOUT PROJECTS More... THE SILENT MASS GENERATOR WORKSHOP GES #411 ARCHIVE SPACE NOVEMBER 6, 2015 The Silent Mass Generator Workshop incorporated the public to assemble, build and incorporate physical mass within an experimental simulated mindfulness environment. The duration of the workshop spanned 5 hours and 44 minutes inside of The Grace Exhibition Space Shirt Factory Studio #411. There was no speaking, eating, or drinking. Participation was not required, participants were free to come and go, or stay for a portion of the workshop. The workshop was designed to distract the subconscious mind by the tedium of cutting, ripping, and tying material to form long strands in order to facilitate the entry into a mindful, meditative, psychic space. The project explored the development and agenda of interwoven notions of communal beliefs, material dynamics, possibilities of non-linear physical travel implied through numbers expressing location using longitude and latitude, the metaphor of breath in relation to inspiration and language styles expressing give-and-take or push/pull communication patterns, the articulation of verbal concepts in relation to the movement between ball-and-socket joints such as the hips and shoulders during the birthing-process, as well as the documentation of scientifically unsubstantiated effects of focused intention and ritual action in non-physical reality such as memory, deja-vu, and other phenomena of psychic imprint. An experimental soundscape designed with Christina Amelia Diamond acted as an electronic gong wash intended to initiate 23 cycles of ordered energetic body activation using specific Hz. Other auditory Information within the noise composition was generated by The Entity. Speaking was disallowed at The Silent Mass Generator Workshop. The Entity thanks Jeanie Antonelle, Undine Brod, Leonard Fujiyama, Hillary Harvey, Mor Pipman, and Christina Varga for their contribution of materials. CALL FOR MATERIAL DONATIONS SEPTEMBER 25, 2015 The Entity seeks donations of scrap, waste, or unsellable materials such as fabric cut-offs, twine, rolled or spooled material, rope, ribbon, thread, or anything that is in long strands or could be cut and tied to form long strands. The nature of the project has lead to the present development of an official CALL FOR DONATED MATERIALS. The Entity also seeks donations of traditional artist’s materials as well as non-toxic industrial materials which might be repurposed. The upcoming phase of the project includes an opportunity for community participation with an interactive component in the form of a silent workshop intended to build physical mass through the hands-on manipulation of donated material. The workshop will be free and open to the public. FEEDING THE ENTITY MARCH 2015 Feeding The Entity explores the development and agenda of interwoven notions of communal beliefs, material dynamics, possibilities of non-linear physical travel implied through numbers expressing location using longitude and latitude, the metaphor of breath in relation to inspiration and language styles expressing give-and-take or push/pull communication patterns, the articulation of verbal concepts in relation to the movement between ball-and-socket joints such as the hips and shoulders during the birthing-process, as well as the documentation of scientifically unsubstantiated effects of focused intention and ritual action in non-physical reality such as memory, deja-vu, and other phenomena of psychic imprint.

Nina A. Isabelle performs as part of Anarko Art Lab's Temporary Ungovernable Zone at Ft. Tilden in NYC HOME ABOUT PROJECTS 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

HOME ABOUT PROJECTS More... ILLUMINATING INTANGIBLES Performance by Nina Isabelle & Amelia Iaia at Para\\el Performance Space in Brooklyn, NY on March 23, 2019 English fails at describing the location of abstractions in relation to the human body. Identifying such things is challenging and understanding our proximities to both physical and abstract structures or concepts is a murky smudge in our perceptive fields and abilities. Recognizing how perceptions transition from one "place" to another requires a deep inquiry into the question of how we arrive at sensing or knowing. Prepositions are words that describe the location of things in relation to other things. The English language has more than a million words to describe subjects and objects yet only 150 prepositions. Prepositions are useful for describing the location of physical objects yet fail when put up against or in combination with abstract subjects. Amelia and I generated a random list of prepositions paired with abstract nouns and verbs and came up with one-hundred-and-fifty phrases that we used to produce an audio arrangement. We constructed interactive objects of materials consisting of various textures, densities, and transparency for our performance. We came up with a set of gestures that we felt illustrated the concept as a way to illuminate the intangibleness of our language and perception situation.

Abstract oil paintings by Nina Isabelle - 2015 Nina Isabelle HOME ABOUT PROJECTS 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

HOME ABOUT PROJECTS More... MOCK THE CHASM NOVEMBER 13, 2016 ART/LIFE INSTITUTE KINGSTON Mock The Chasm was performed at The Art/Life Institute Kingston during Alex Chêllet and Jaime Emerson’s November 2016 Artists In Residency Night of Performance exhibition. Inspired by the 2016 presidential election, the performance aims to inspect the spiritual illusion between God and America and how it is used to warp the space between morality and finance. Actions include worshipping a golden calf, wrestling and subduing a life-sized victim, and a self-crucifixion.

HOME ABOUT PROJECTS More... WHISTLE PORTRAITS By Linda Mary Montano HiLo Catskill June 10, 2018 During these dangerous / confusing / armageddonned times we are all looking for connection, understanding, and warmth. The three of us are committed to providing public art medicine. ART=LIFE=ART. For WHISTLE PORTRAITS at HiLo, we invite audience member-collaborators to sit with us and receive a public art healing. ART HEALS!!! - Linda Mary Montano photo by Adolfo Ibanez Ayerve

Things can be objects or subjects. While objects are tangible things abstracted from the particularness of subjects, subjects are the intangible concepts or notions we extract from objects. How do we process the intangible sense data we extract from encountering objects made of particles in the phys HOME ABOUT PROJECTS More... MOSS ROCK CAGE April 2020 Moss covered rock welded into hand-bent steel cage sold for a fundraising effort for HiLo Art in Catskill, NY during the pandemic.

Nina A. Isabelle is a multidisciplinary artist working with abstract painting, performance art, video, photography, sound, and sculpture. HOME ABOUT PROJECTS More... LOCATIONAL TRAUMA TRANSFORM JUNE 23, 2016 The Locational Trauma Transforming Trap was constructed by Neva & Nina Isabelle as an action to align with the intention of absorbing and transforming physical trauma such as broken bones, head injury, and the visual implant of witnessing blood as well as emotional and physical damage to the bodies and psyches of friends and family. A handwoven trauma trap was constructed using black silk. Coated with gymnastics chalk, The Trauma Trap was used to absorb and transform trauma located at 40.8987° N, 77.3561° W. The contaminated trap was then hand washed in a mountain spring in order do dislodge the traumas from multiple physical geographic and bodily locations. One participant reports that the best tricks she learned in Gymnastics was "how to not feel pain."

HOME ABOUT PROJECTS More... CITIZEN PARTICIPATION: DIAGRAMS & DIRECTIVES FEMINIST ART GROUP (IV Castellanos, Amanda Hunt, Nina Isabelle & Thea Little) ABC No Rio in Exile at Bullet Space 292 E. 3rd St. NYC May 6, 2018 Organized by Esther Neff & Steven Englander Feminist Art Group Citizen Participation : Diagrams & Directives / ABC No Rio in Exile at Bullet Space / photos by Esther Neff Feminist Art Group / Thea Little Citizen Participation : Diagrams & Directives / ABC No Rio in Exile at Bullet Space / photos by Esther Neff Feminist Art Group Citizen Participation : Diagrams & Directives / ABC No Rio in Exile at Bullet Space / photos by Esther Neff Feminist Art Group Citizen Participation : Diagrams & Directives / ABC No Rio in Exile at Bullet Space / photos by Esther Neff Feminist Art Group / Thea Little Citizen Participation : Diagrams & Directives / ABC No Rio in Exile at Bullet Space / photos by Esther Neff Feminist Art Group / Nina Isabelle Citizen Participation : Diagrams & Directives / ABC No Rio in Exile at Bullet Space / photos by Esther Neff Feminist Art Group Citizen Participation : Diagrams & Directives / ABC No Rio in Exile at Bullet Space / photos by Esther Neff Feminist Art Group / Amanda Hunt Citizen Participation : Diagrams & Directives / ABC No Rio in Exile at Bullet Space / photos by Esther Neff Feminist Art Group Citizen Participation : Diagrams & Directives / ABC No Rio in Exile at Bullet Space / photos by Esther Neff Feminist Art Group Citizen Participation : Diagrams & Directives / ABC No Rio in Exile at Bullet Space / photos by Esther Neff Feminist Art Group / IV Castellanos Citizen Participation : Diagrams & Directives / ABC No Rio in Exile at Bullet Space / photos by Esther Neff Feminist Art Group Citizen Participation : Diagrams & Directives / ABC No Rio in Exile at Bullet Space / photos by Esther Neff Feminist Art Group Citizen Participation : Diagrams & Directives / ABC No Rio in Exile at Bullet Space / photos by Esther Neff

HOME ABOUT PROJECTS More... FEMINIST ART GROUP (F.A.G.) doing JUST SITUATIONS June 23, 2017 Grace Exhibition Space Brooklyn, NY "Just Situations is a hybrid conference, festival, and “political science fair,” hosting artists and active citizens who are working in performative ways, moving beyond the trending commercialization of art “about” politics, into non-representational and non-reproductive modes of performance which directly construct, speculate, design. position, and posit “just” forms of political, social, and personal human being and becoming." "States of unknowing, collectivity transcending and social becoming are workshopped and parsed, particulated and presented." JUST SITUATIONS is a project of the Brooklyn International Performance Art Foundation (BIPAF). BIPAF is an ongoing (since 2013), communal, and demi-anonymous/open-source platform for performance of socially-constructive institutional critique. https://justsituations.wordpress.com/ IMG_E6818 Thea Little, IV Castellanos Elizabeth Lamb Quinn Dukes Elizabeth Lamb Elizabeth Lamb Elizabeth Lamb Elizabeth Lamb Elizabeth Lamb, IV Castellanos 1/1

Things can be objects or subjects. While objects are tangible things abstracted from the particularness of subjects, subjects are the intangible concepts or notions we extract from objects. How do we process the intangible sense data we extract from encountering objects made of particles in the phys HOME ABOUT PROJECTS More... TEN THOUSAND OBJECTIVES I was interested in trying to figure out how the body knows what it knows — specifically, the somatic experience of tangible material, the cognitive experience of intangible concepts, and the interplay between these four variables. I was also interested in how repetition seems to create the potential to sidestep consciousness, and I wanted to experiment with that notion to see if I could access different modes of perception or ways of knowing by engaging in a repetitive action for an extended length of time. In setting up the framework for this performance, I mapped out and identified all the parameters that I was able to. I decided on the timeframe and squared off the surface area of my work space. This gave me a way to control the tangible aspects of the performance. By laying out this semi-structured plan, I hoped to create a situation where intangibles and surprises could occur. Starting in the middle of an eighteen foot square of floor space, I set out to make one thousand pinch pots within a span of four hours. I imagined the pots would fill the entire work space and somehow be equally distributed. I counted the pots as I went along and kept track of them in ten groups of ten — something I realized was necessary as I went along and realized would be the only way for me to know when I was done. I was surprised to find that, at the end of the four hours, and down to within a few minutes, I had made the exact amount I set out to make. While I was working, the span of four hours seemed to shrink down to about the feeling of twenty minutes. These are the types of perceptive phenomena I’m interested in working with and demonstrating. How did these things happen so exactly with such little planning? How and why does time seem to stretch or contract depending on levels of engagement, intention, and focus? Things can be objects or subjects. While objects are tangible things abstracted from the particularness of subjects, subjects are the intangible concepts or notions we extract from objects. How do we process the intangible sense data we extract from encountering objects made of particles in the physical dimension and what do we call this process? What are the internal mechanisms we use to govern how we locate and position our physical selves in relation to objects in space? For this project, I constructed and deconstructed a batch of 10,000 intangible and tangible subjects and objects as a way to set both their physical and nonmaterial aspects free. Through forming a set of 1,000 physical objects made of clay with my hands, the conceptual intangibleness of their essence was simultaneously set free and bound as it transformed into material form. Conversely, intangible concepts were released from physicality through the gestural motions accompanied by the transmutation of 9,000 subjects into nonmaterial objects. Equinox: EMERGENCY OF JOY - 10,000 THINGS SET FREE Seventy one artists from around the world work together remotely and simultaneously over the spring Equinox. Organized by Chelsea Burton, Rae Diamond, Erik Ehn, Brenda Hutchinson, Suki O’Kane, “Ten thousand is rooted in the Buddhist concept of the ten thousand dharmas – an image for all observable reality." MARCH 19, 2020 11:49 PM EST - MARCH 20, 2020 1:49 AM EST (Equinox at 11:49 PM EST)

HOME ABOUT PROJECTS More... UNITY THE LACE MILL KINGSTON, NY MAY 6, 2017 The UNITY show is a partnership of artists from along the Cornell Street corridor — the Shirt Factory, Pajama Factory, Brush Factory, Cornell Street Studios and The Lace Mill — whose works will be exhibited at The Lace Mill’s East Gallery and West Gallery, 165 Cornell Street, Kingston. The show’s opening reception will be held Saturday, May 6 from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Disciplines include painting, sculpture, ceramics, performance, installation, music, and dance, video, puppetry for kids, and sonic meditation. Artwork, like Election Night March 2017 by Leslie Bender, at right will be featured. A closing reception the following on Saturday, May 13 from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m., features live performance-based art such as dance, video and music. Inspired by the newly launched Midtown Arts District (MAD) last year, Lace Mill community arts liaison Sarah Carlson and Shirt Factory events coordinator Lisa Kelley started discussing the possibilities of joining forces to create a dynamic group show of the buildings’ artists while also supporting the mission and initiatives of MAD. Carlson explains, “I wanted to do a show that was about what we have in common, rather than what divides us, and to have that conversation as a community. It seemed sweet to open that dialogue to the arts corridor right here and a nice way for us to dialogue about what’s happening on the local national stage. As artists, that’s what we do.” Kelley adds, “I love Sarah’s idea for bringing our artists together with the theme of unity. Over the last year, the Midtown Arts District and Mike Piazza’s artist factory buildings have supported this kind of collaboration between artists. I believe we’re planting some fertile seeds for exciting partnerships in the future.” Over two dozen artists will participate in UNITY.

Nina A. Isabelle is a multidisciplinary artist working with abstract painting, performance art, video, photography, sound, and sculpture. HOME ABOUT PROJECTS More... PAINTINGS 2017 1-2017 - 43.50 x 62.25 Acrylic on Canvas 43.50 x 62.25 2017 2-2017 43.50 x 62.25 Acrylic on Canvas 43.50 x 62.25 2017 3-2017 - 43.50 x 62.25 Acrylic on Canvas 43.50 x 62.25 2017 Paintings in the studio Paintings in the studio In 2017, I made these large abstract paintings using a four-inch brush to drag six colors sequentially across each surface. With each new color came the erasure of what came before, each mark both creating and subtracting, layering presence over absence. Seven years later, I revisit these works through the lens of my history as a climber, seeing how physical instinct and embodied decision-making shape both artmaking and movement. In making these paintings, I explored the boldness required to act, to trust the body’s sense of direction apart from rational logic. The process feels akin to bouldering: reading a route, sensing where the holds might be, and moving through uncertainty with focus and commitment. Sometimes instinct leads to success; other times it fails completely. Yet in both art and climbing, these moments of failure become gifts that reveal what we know, what we don’t, and how understanding and discovery emerge through the body. Like artmaking, climbing demands presence, intuition, and courage. Both acts arise from a need for momentum and discovery, from testing the limits of embodied perception. Through these works, I consider how the body: its history, effort, and instinct, can guide creative process and generate knowledge beyond the rational or cerebral. This approach also resists the elitism and performative intellectualism that too often alienate people from art. The creative, experimental, and playful processes of both artmaking and climbing are accessible to all humans, regardless of social, educational, and economic backgrounds, offering a way of being that reconnects us with our shared humanity. I began climbing in 1990. My main stomping grounds were the boulders and trad routes of Little Cottonwood Canyon in Salt Lake City. I also climbed extensively in Indian Creek, City of Rocks, Yosemite, and Zion, focusing on trad routes, bouldering, freeing aid routes, as well as scouting, exploring, and developing hidden spots around Gunnison and the Southwest as a proto–dirtbag van-life kid.