Christopher Nitsche, Multi-media Sculpture & Installation, Swanzey

Christopher Nitsche was born in Parkersburg, WV and received his Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master of Arts at Northern Illinois University. He later obtained his Master of Fine Arts in Studio Arts and Sculpture at the University of New Mexico.

Nitsche creates sculptures, temporary installations and drawings involving an exploration of the visual and metaphorical attributes of ship forms. His inspirations for this approach is the work of artists who have spent whole careers exploring and knowing the visual presence of singular subjects or concepts; like Sean Scully's stripes and Giorgio Morandi's still lifes. Nitsche creates structural installations that are often passageways that the viewer can walk through as well. He intends these to be all-encompassing environments, engaging the exhibition space physically and the viewer psychologically.

Nitsche is Artist in Residence at his local transfer station where he obtains his sculpture building materials of lumber, doors, window frames, household furniture and sheet metal. Sometimes he incorporates neon, argon and colored incandescent lighting, recorded sounds and radio noise to enhance the perceptual experience.

Nitsche's collaborative, juried, and solo exhibitions stretch from the Carnegie Art Museum in California, to the National Exhibition of American Art in New York, and the Thorne-Sagendorph Gallery in New Hampshire.

"Since 1999, much of my work has reflected on specific social tragedies in universal artistic terms," said Nitsche. "Constructed out of window frames, it is a contemplation of the American polarizing social fabric, the schism between idealism and rational discourse and domination and repression, toward a monotonous cultural identity."

Nitsche has been the recipient a Fellowship from the Colorado State Council on the Arts, and Faculty Development Grants from Arapaho Community College Foundation. His teaching experience reaches from New Mexico to Colorado and New Hampshire, where he is currently Assistant Professor of Sculpture at Keene State College. He lives in nearby Swanzey with his wife Melanie Mills, an art therapist, their 6-year old daughter Sophia, and two cats.

For more images visit http://academics.keene.edu/cnitsche/index.htm

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Last updated: October 25, 2005