Nastassja has been selected for a Public Arts Commission in Richmond, VA, her first large-scale public art project. She is the recent recipient of the Center for Craft: Craft Research Fund Artist Fellowship, a VMFA Fellowship, a Dr. Doris Derby Award, an Art Matters Fellowship Award, the inaugural Black Box Press Foundation Art as Activism Grant, and a Virginia Commission of the Arts Fellowship. Her work has been acquired into the Grace Linton Battle Memorial Fund for the Arts Collection, as well as Quirk Hotel in Charlottesville. Nastassja has been included in the Berlin publication SomeMagazine, RVA Magazine, RHome Magazine, and the Stranger, a Seattle publication. She has participated in several national and international residencies and exhibitions, including her solo exhibit in Doha, Qatar, in 2016, NADA Miami, The Urban Institute of Contemporary Art in Michigan, and fellowships at the Vermont Studio Center, SPACES, and MASS MoCA. Nastassja is currently living and working in Virginia.
Artist Statement
As a sculptural fiber artist, my work exists figuratively, in full or often fragmented forms that speak to geographical histories, ancestry, ritual practices, and community. Through installation, performance, and collaboration, these needle-felted sculptures morph into a form of storytelling that expands the above themes and reinterprets new ways to settle in our realities. I communicate stories that mirror the memories, complexities, and tenderness of Black people and our communities by taking our collective histories and developing a larger story to then offer a single moment within that narrative through my work. Whether it’s the hairstyles of my figures, the detailed and intentional gestures, language used in the title, or the iconography of our cultures, there are always special details, a visual, coded language, that reminds my audience that this work is for and about them.
