Eisenman, Nicole

Eisenman, Nicole,

1965–, American artist, b. Verdun, France (where her father was stationed), M.F.A, Rhode Island School of Design, 1987. Eisenman became widely known after her work appeared in the 1995 Whitney Museum Biennial. Her figurative paintings, which range from quite small to mural-sized, e.g., The Triumph of Poverty (2009), mingle the personal and the political, the real and the dream, in a contemporary expressionist realism that is often filled with humor and satire and is frequently influenced by art history. Some, including many of her portraits and family scenes, are very realistic; some are filled with fantasy or caricature; and many are explicity sexual, often with a lesbian theme. She has also created installations, drawings, prints, and sculpture, often larger-than-life-size plaster figures. In 2015 she recieved a MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant.