Nyssa Collins
I am an interdisciplinary artist based in Knoxville, TN working primarily with puppets and stop motion animation. I make shadow puppet epics about deep time and technology, experimental animations about phenomenal consciousness, and giant critters made from rubbish for public art commissions and absurd/heartfelt collaborations with friends. My chief influences are popular science, expanded consciousness and psychedelia, and early 20th century technology.
My academic research is primarily concerned with the complex experience of being a human. I am interested in how art can communicate intact, irreducible images that complement other modes of inquiry. Many of my works take forms often marginalized to childhood, like puppet shows, dioramas, and stop motion films. I use these mediums for the same reason that children do: as tools for understanding the nature of being, our world, and our place in it.
I have an MFA in Time Based Art from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. I learned most of my important values about collaboration, mischief, and art for the people from my time at the giant puppet company Paperhand. I also studied piano at Humboldt State University. (BA Piano Performance) and am learning to play the pipe organ.
contact me: nyssacollins (at) gmail.com
