Originally from Detroit, I’m now living and working in Chicago. I received my undergraduate and graduate degrees in painting from Wayne State University in Detroit.
My paintings and drawings act as found mementos that reference reminiscences of place or art historical memories. The images act as a somewhat askew anchor to familiarity. Using the tropes of the artifact, postcard, ruin, and souvenir, a sense of nostalgia, humor, and fragmentation of memory is expressed through abstracted narratives
Selected recent exhibits include: White Column’s Artist Registry, NYC listing; Solo exhibition: "Mementos: Paths That Cross" at Material Exhibitions in Chicago (essay by Jefferson Godard); ART IN PLACE: Self Isolation: an on-line exhibit at Standard Space, Sharon, CT;  "Gold" at Aspect/Ratio Gallery, Chicago; Open Boundaries, Loosen Arts Books, Rome, Italy; Solo Exhibition and Publication Fellow at Peripheral Vision Arts (Critical Essay: "Material Memory: Postmodern Nostalgia in the Works of Nancy Wisti Grayson” by Crystal Rosenthal); landscapes of a fictional past, Submissive Exhibitions, Chicago, IL and "What Is and Never Was". Parenthesis Gallery, Chicago.
In 2008, I was an Artist in Residence at the Palazzo Rinaldi, Noepoli (Basilicata), Italy. In November, 2022 and March 2024 , I was an Artist in Residence at Arte Studio Ginestrelle in Assisi, Italy and will be returning to that residency in March, 2025.
https://wistigrayson.com