5x7x2 photograph with encaustic, mounted on cradle board
framed
 
ARTIST’S STATEMENT:
I want the viewer of my work to feel transported to a timeless natural world where beauty and hope transcend the routine of day-to-day life. I firmly believe that in these uncertain times of chaos and upheaval—where anger and fear prevail—art that opens us up to connection and empathy while adding a little beauty to our lives is needed more than ever. Creating art, especially in the time of Corona, helps me recover a sensation of life and vitality in the midst of feelings of hopelessness that come and go.
 
BIOGRAPHY:
Nina Anthony spent her formative years living in Japan and Thailand before moving to the States not long after the start of Vietnam War. She was a curious child who enjoyed climbing trees, collecting rocks, ice skating on creeks, exploring abandoned houses, and gathering up bouquets of weeds to bring home to her mother after returning from her excursions in nature.
After graduating from high school in Indianapolis, she attended Indiana University where she earned a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism. Following graduation, Nina returned to Indianapolis and worked for several years as an award-winning ad agency copywriter. She credits one of her clients, Clarion Resorts, for bringing her to New Mexico for the first time and in 1993 Nina pulled up her Midwestern roots and moved to Taos permanently.
To help her process her grief after the loss of her mother in 1999, Nina took a darkroom printing class titled, “The Print,” taught by renowned Taos photographer William Davis. She has been developing her creative skills and unique style ever since by taking workshops at Anderson Ranch, Santa Fe Workshops, and the Encaustic Institute.
Today, Anthony’s work is strongly influenced by nature and the beauty of Northern New Mexico that lured her to the area. She aligns herself with the Pictorialism movement that took the medium of photography and reinvented it as an art form. She is also inspired by her admiration for the artists from the Hudson River School and the emphasis on Romanticism’s effects of light on landscapes.
The majority of Anthony’s current work is mixed media, combining a photographic base image with layers of texture added both digitally and organically with the addition of pan pastels, gouche, gold leaf, and encaustic medium and paints that re-interpret a scene rather than mechanically recording it. Her work conveys a poetic experience of nature through both her imagery and words as she has recently begun utilizing her background in English and Journalism to write poetry to accompany her art.
After losing her husband of 30 years in 2014, she married Taos painter and printmaker, Randall Lagro, in 2019. The two creatives share their bucolic property on 7 acres bordering the Carson National Forest in San Cristobal, New Mexico, with two dogs, a cat, and lots of visiting wildlife.