Nancy Tobin

Like the fantastic imagined landscapes she creates, Nancy Tobin has constructed her career in layers: varied but consistent in it’s commitment to form, technique and process.
Her dedication to art-making started early, in a basement studio she created at age 10 in her parents home in Gran Rapids Michigan. Following the path open to the youngest child in a blue-collar family, she parlayed a degree in commercial art into a successful career as an award winning graphic designer and children’s book illustrator.
Tobin moved to San Francisco (where she studied painting at the San Francisco Art institute0, then relocated to the New York area in 2001.
During the years in New York area, Nancy’s painting career has taken flight. She’s has solo and group exhibitions in galleries across the country, including the Cue Gallery in New York, the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art in Michigan, Orange County Center for Contemporary art in California, and Mason Gross at Rutgers University and the Pierro Gallery in New Jersey.
In 2007, Tobin won the Brodsky Center for Innovative Print and Pap[ermaking fellowship at Rutgers Unniverisity. Her work has been acquired by numerous private and museum collections.

Curriculum Vitae
Selected Exhibitions
2020. Western Michigan Lowell Arts, MI
2009 BCIE Annual (Highlighting the Print and Papermaking Fellowship),
Rutgers University Newark, NJ Art Connections 5, George Segal Gallery, Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ
2008 Boson Exotic, Rupert Ravens Contemporary, Newark, NJ
What’s New, Montclair Public Museum, Montclair, NJ Currents, Ben Shahn Galleries, William Patterson University, Wayne, NJ
2007 Sanctuary, Rupert Ravens Contemporary, Newark, NJ
Nowhere Here, two-person exhibition with Cheol Yu Kim, Mikail Zakin Gallery, Demarest, NJ
Essex Exposed, Pierro Gallery of South Orange, South Orange, NJ
Daylight Savings, City Without Walls/Seton Hall Law School Gallery, Newark, NJ
Viz, Trans-Genre Event, with poet Jerome Rothenberg, Bowery Poetry Club, New York, NY
What’s New, Montclair Public Library, Montclair, NJ
Dynamic Exchange: Collaborative Works of Jerome Rothenberg, UCSD Library, San Diego, CA
2006 Surface Tension: New Paintings by Nancy Tobin, ArtSpace 129, Montclair, NJ
Surface Tension: Works on Paper by Nancy Tobin, Block Gallery, Montclair, NJ NurtureArt: Nurturing the Edge, Cue Foundation, New York, NY Visible Word, The Center for Performing Arts at DeBaun, Hoboken, NJ Winter Salon, ArtSpace 129, Montclair, NJ
2005 Circular Logic, The Rosalind & Alfred Lippman Gallery, Short Hills, NJ
Red, Glen Ridge Women’s Club, Glen Ridge, NJ As She Sees It: 8 Women Artists, Pierro Gallery, South Orange, NJ Artworks! Arts in the Marketplace, Arts Council of Morris, Florham Park, NJ Infiltrations, 1978 Maplewood Arts Center, Maplewood, NJ
2004 Focus on Collage, four-person exhibition, ArtSpace 129, Montclair, NJ
Self-Portrait 2004, Northwest Cultural Council, Barrington, IL Remembrances of Things Past, South Shore Art Center, Cohasset, MA
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10th Annual Gulf Coast National, Texas Artists Museum, Port Arthur, TX Pareidolia, Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Ana, CA The Odds, City Without Walls, Newark, NJ Autumn in America, State of the Art Gallery, Ithaca, NY Contemporary Abstracts, Alameda Art Center, Alameda, CA Compact Competition, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA Portal Spaces Exhibit, Urban Institute for Contemporary Art, Grand Rapids, MI
2003 12th National Juried Show, Art Center of Northern New Jersey, New Milford, NJ 2000 Taking the Leap, Heritage Square, Emeryville, CA
Education
1994-1998
San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA 1978-1981
Kendall College of Art, Grand Rapids, MI
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Publications
Three Poems (book of paintings and poems with poet Jerome Rothenberg),
published by Hawk’s Well Press, 2007
Event, a Trans-Genre Anthology: (highlighting collaboration with poet
Jerome Rothenberg),
edited by Roxanne Power Hamilton, published by Viz. Inter-Arts, 2007
Art Start (instructional guide for Quiltage collage technique),
written and illustrated by Nancy Tobin, Quiltage Press, 2003
Illustrated five highly acclaimed children’s educational books:
Fraction Fun
David A. Adler, illustrated by Nancy Tobin, Holiday House, 1996
Shape Up!
David A. Adler, illustrated by Nancy Tobin, Holiday House, 1998
How Tall, How Short, How Faraway
David A. Adler, illustrated by Nancy Tobin, Holiday House, 1999
Drip, Drop: How Water Gets to Your Tap
Barbara Seuling, illustrated by Nancy Tobin, Holiday House, 2000
Flick A Switch: How Electricity Gets to Your House
Barbara Seuling, illustrated by Nancy Tobin, Holiday House, 2003