Aliza Nisenbaum
Photo by Brad Ogbonna
Aliza Nisenbaum’s life and work has been deeply influenced by her trans-border upbringing.
She was born and raised in Mexico City to a Russian-Mexican father and Norwegian-American mother. Her paintings in portraiture and still-life use the focused attention of observational painting to mark those who are socially unmarked in society (undocumented immigrants), along with apparently anonymous goods that constitute a transnational trade in quotidian objects such as flowers, garments, and handcrafts. Rather than view this as a primarily documentary act, her paintings introduce us to the radical interiority of her subjects by allowing them to withdraw from our gaze even as our eyes consume the patterned surfaces that enframe them.
Brooklyn, New York
Born 1977, Mexico City, Mexico
2005 MFA School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
2001 BFA School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
1999 Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City, Mexico