Nancy Shaver
Nancy Shaver (born 1946) is an American visual artist based in Jefferson, New York. Early life and education. Shaver was born in 1946 in Appleton, New York. She earned a BFA at Pratt Institute in 1969. In 1994, Shaver opened the antique shop "Henry" in Hudson, New York. Career. She has taught in Bard College’s MFA program for more than 20 years. The "Robert Gober: The Heart is Not a Metaphor" exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in 2015 includes some of her early photographs. Her work also appeared in MoMA-PS1’s "Greater New York  in 2015, La Biennale di Venezia" in 2017, and at the National Gallery, Washington, DC, in "Outliers and the American Vanguard Art" in 2018. Critical reception. "The New York Times" wrote, "Nancy Shaver’s exhibitions often overload the senses. They are extravaganzas of stuff, colorful and tactile, mostly society’s castoffs recycled into forms that expose false binaries, like high versus low, form versus function, masculine versus feminine and art versus craft." Alex Abramovich of "The New Yorker" wrote that she "collects textiles and objects that are as likely to end up in her antique shop in Hudson, New York , as they are in galleries." According to Sherman Sam of ArtForum, "A typical Shaver form consists of a grid of boxy canvases, usually joined together two deep into a larger block, and covered with different patterned fabrics upon which are also collaged clothes and pieces of drawings." Art in America's Dan Nadel wrote, "Her sprawling installation for the Biennale—a motley amalgamation of her boxy sculptures and contributions from nineteen other artists—is partly autobiographical. The work reflects a long process of developing a handmade aesthetic with a communal ethos..." Susan Hodara of The New York Times wrote of  the exhibit, "Reconciliation," "For Ms. Shaver, inspiration comes from found objects, particularly fabrics culled from rural thrift shops... The presence of Evans’s photographs and Delaunay’s designs in "Reconciliation" underscores the exhibition’s spectrum of aesthetic, economic and cultural references." Awards and honors. Shaver has received multiple awards.