photo by Carolina Monroy
STATEMENT
Light is both the subject and the substance of my work. With simple materials and shifting methods, I explore and photograph light’s changing properties as it bends and moves through space. Rather than documenting objects, I am interested in capturing visual encounters with light’s unique qualities all around us.
Since light is everywhere, I realized that the best way to make light visible is to interrupt it. I have placed multiple obstructions in the path of light, forcing shadows out of the air. I have given myself impossible challenges to see how it would respond. My attempts to capture, to redirect, to create volumes of light, have all led to my current work. Documenting the fractured effects of unseen light through the lens is an experience of seeing and thinking in new ways.
Throughout the year of 2025 I created a photographic suite of images which defy what I had expected. Collectively, they confound perception and reality, drawing attention to the relationship of what we see and what we think we know. This unknown space I’m working in reveals unique beauty and outrageous results, leading us to the ambiguity of light.
My upcoming solo show, The Ambiguity of Light, will be exhibited at CORE GALLERY, Seattle, July 2nd, 2026.
BIO
Nancy Edelstein is a photo-based fine art photographer and installation artist who engages with natural light. As a result of testing and observation, she constructs abstracted images through the lens of refraction and reflection. Her latest efforts have resulted in a suite of unique images entitled “The Ambiguity of Light,” and is the product of her formal, non-objective approach. This upcoming work is a natural development from her previous solo exhibition presented in 2023 at Method Gallery, titled “The Shape of Light,” in which the primary material was light itself.
Nancy completed her MFA from MICA, Maryland Institute of Art, in 2021, and holds an earlier BFA from the University of Michigan. In addition, she was awarded a full residency fellowship to MASS MoCA in 2021 and was invited back for a second alumni residency in 2022, which culminated in her open studio installation entitled “Pray for Sun.”
Prior to her graduate program, Nancy designed and produced unique limited edition legacy books through her business Biographica. Her own personal book, “Friday Night DInners”, is in the permanent artbook collection at Swarthmore College, while an earlier photographic piece of hers is held in the Bailey Boushay Collection in Seattle.
Nancy’s photographic work has been exhibited at the Davis Norton Gallery in Hudson, New York; the Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester, MA. The Month of Photography Los Angeles, Photo Book Exhibition, Lucie Foundation, Venice Arts, April, 2018 and more.
THE AMBIGUITY OF LIGHT will be exhibited at CORE Gallery in Seattle, July of 2026.
CONTACT
Email edelstein.nancy@gmail.com
Instagram nancyjo.art
Website: https://nancyedelstein.com