Nancy Blum
Upcoming exhibition
Overview
Opening Reception: Saturday, June 6 from 11:00am-1:00pm
Artist Walkthrough begins at 11:30am
Quint Gallery is pleased to present Nancy Blum: Stars and Stripes, the Brooklyn-based artist’s second solo exhibition with the gallery. Stars and Stripes builds upon Blum’s prolific drawing practice, which explores the dynamic relationship between the macro and the micro, both as an entanglement between the bounded and the infinite, and between the individual and the collective. Blum’s meandering lines explore how attention itself can become a form of devotion: an embodied act of care that transforms producer and perceiver.
For this exhibition, employing graphite and colored pencil on black paper, Blum has created a large-scale installation of alternating Stars and Stripes compositions. The juxtaposition of vertical bands of color and radiating light forms, each etched with unique undulating shapes, brings together what initially emerged as two distinct bodies of work. Over time, the series began to inform one another and, installed here together, generate a pulsating visual field that amplifies the singular and the multitudinous through precision, iteration, and accumulation.
Behaving less like discrete images than a living system, the stripes function as spatial intervals between the radiating stars—not as negative space, but akin to major and minor keys in music. This cadence produces a sonic resonance that suggests that the work and the viewer are part of an even greater whole. Perception unfolds gradually through movement, continuity, and sustained looking. Rooted in craft and ritualized mark-making, Blum’s drawings transform the modest materials of individual drawings into expansive fields of play, vibration, and possibility. Each work is created with a deep sense of hope and optimism, with the same degree of curiosity and attentiveness spilling over into the next.
Reflecting on this body of work, Blum states: “Over time Stars and Stripes expanded into a meditation on the collective: the human condition as a chorus of difference. At first unintentionally echoing the flag, they reflect the tension and promise of democracy—a quilt of many voices stitched together through labor, persistence, and care. The slow, repetitive act of mark-making parallels the work of mending and building a just society: patient, cumulative, and never complete.”
For this exhibition, employing graphite and colored pencil on black paper, Blum has created a large-scale installation of alternating Stars and Stripes compositions. The juxtaposition of vertical bands of color and radiating light forms, each etched with unique undulating shapes, brings together what initially emerged as two distinct bodies of work. Over time, the series began to inform one another and, installed here together, generate a pulsating visual field that amplifies the singular and the multitudinous through precision, iteration, and accumulation.
Behaving less like discrete images than a living system, the stripes function as spatial intervals between the radiating stars—not as negative space, but akin to major and minor keys in music. This cadence produces a sonic resonance that suggests that the work and the viewer are part of an even greater whole. Perception unfolds gradually through movement, continuity, and sustained looking. Rooted in craft and ritualized mark-making, Blum’s drawings transform the modest materials of individual drawings into expansive fields of play, vibration, and possibility. Each work is created with a deep sense of hope and optimism, with the same degree of curiosity and attentiveness spilling over into the next.
Reflecting on this body of work, Blum states: “Over time Stars and Stripes expanded into a meditation on the collective: the human condition as a chorus of difference. At first unintentionally echoing the flag, they reflect the tension and promise of democracy—a quilt of many voices stitched together through labor, persistence, and care. The slow, repetitive act of mark-making parallels the work of mending and building a just society: patient, cumulative, and never complete.”
Nancy Blum received her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art and is widely recognized for her drawings and large-scale public art commissions. Her work has been supported by the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, the Peter S. Reed Foundation, the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, and New York’s Lower East Side Printshop, among other institutions. Blum has participated in numerous residencies and has served as a visiting artist, critic, and lecturer at institutions across North America, including Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, The Archie Bray Foundation, Hunter College, and University of Michigan School of Art & Design. The first monograph of her work was published in 2017 and features essays, interviews and documentation of her drawing, sculpture, and public artworks.
Her work has been exhibited nationally at venues including the North Carolina Museum of Art, the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, the Boise Art Museum, the Weatherspoon Museum and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Her work is held in numerous public and private collections.
Blum is also well known for her ambitious, public commissions. For New York City’s MTA Arts & Design program, she created a suite of large-scale botanical mosaics for the historic 28th Street subway station, later featured in the 2024 publication Contemporary Art Underground: MTA Arts & Design New York. Additional selected projects include: Revival, a monumental glass installation for San Francisco General Hospital; outdoor sculptural works that can be found in Seattle and Philadelphia; and integrated public artworks for transit stations in Minneapolis–St. Paul.
Her work has been exhibited nationally at venues including the North Carolina Museum of Art, the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, the Boise Art Museum, the Weatherspoon Museum and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Her work is held in numerous public and private collections.
Blum is also well known for her ambitious, public commissions. For New York City’s MTA Arts & Design program, she created a suite of large-scale botanical mosaics for the historic 28th Street subway station, later featured in the 2024 publication Contemporary Art Underground: MTA Arts & Design New York. Additional selected projects include: Revival, a monumental glass installation for San Francisco General Hospital; outdoor sculptural works that can be found in Seattle and Philadelphia; and integrated public artworks for transit stations in Minneapolis–St. Paul.
