Nina Gabriel

"Little Psyche"

Paintings

^Click to Go to Collages^

About

A standard stuffed animal is soft, cute, and perfect for comforting a child, but they also are vessels for our imagination and feelings. They are one of the first things in the world we human beings project upon. We name them, give them genders and personalities. Through the storylines we create for stuffed toys when we play we establish our own fears, desires, and things we like and don’t like. A human’s identity and view of the world starts to unfold. “ Little Psyche” takes this concept of seeing through stuffed animals and makes the play echo darker and complex human behaviors like toxic relationships, abuse, and manipulation. The five paintings featured play with symbolism and body language of the figures to explore these themes in an imaginative way a child’s mind might try to capture them. The show also has a side series “visual notes” too. Each painting has a “sister collage” that works as an X-ray and dissection of the story in the painting. Like the paintings these collages utilize kitschy and childlike imagery to further the narrative.

Nina Gabriel

My dad said the world is ending, Mixed media, October 2020

This zine is basically a reflection and reaction to some of the things going on in the world right now. Through a variety of collages, drawings, and journal entries. I’ve been having a lot of mixed feelings about it all especially coming from things I was told growing up and versus things I’m realizing as I get older, I just have been living with, fear, anxiety, uncertainty, anger, disgust, and a need to create something to capture all these thoughts. People keeping saying the world is definitely ending, and there is no use in trying to save any of it – and this mentally really bothers me. However at the same time with everything coming out I just don’t know anymore – but I would like to have hope. Hopefully this will be a piece that people can look back on in the future and see one perspective from this wold time period.