Michaels, Nia

Nia lives in Seattle, WA. Of her work, she says, "After working in painting and mixed media for many years, a long held obsession with decorative tins took over my studio. I am drawn to the intricate patterns of the tins, the range of colors as well as the effects of aging; the dents, the scratches and the fading. For several years now, I have been making tin assemblage pieces from flattened and snipped decorative tins and Civil War-era tintype photos. The contrast and balance of the colorful tins with the gray tones of the tintypes and the somber expressions of the tintype faces is an essential part of my compositions, often evoking a sense of nostalgia and melancholy that is central to my work. By combining appropriated commercial imagery from the past into something new and by casting strangers, long dead, into new identities, I am drawn to the seemingly endless possibilities and stories that I can coax from these small pieces of metal."