Of Woman and Earth: Exploring the Female Body as Landscape with Bianca Nemelc

Bianca Nemelc by Stephanie Rodriguez.

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Viewing the works of Bianca Nemelc, the lines between mountaintops and the female form are seamlessly intertwined. Nemelc, a figurative painter from Inwood, Upper Manhattan, draws inspiration from and pays tribute to her City of New York, and her familial homelands of the Dominican Republic, Suriname, and Indonesia, in her paintings. Pulling references from her lived experiences, and those imagined, Nemelc’s work blossoms with love–of the land, of the body–and sensuality. Through her use of the acrylic medium, nature, greenery, and Brown, full-figured female bodies take center stage.

Opting to create works that are large in scale, Nemelc reimagines the relationship between Woman and Earth. By marrying Mother Nature with embodied womanhood, Nemelc’s art explores connections between forms of femininity in the natural world, and the spirituality that binds them together. For Nemelc, the body and the land not only coexist together, but find comfort with and in one another.

This past year, Nemelc’s works adorned the walls at Ross+Kramer Gallery and Swivel Gallery in New York City, and the Ojiri Gallery in London. Recently, Nemelc was featured in billboards across New York City through collaborations with Canada Goose and Save Art Space, and her work has even found a home aboard an Expedition Ship under National Geographic/Lindblad Expeditions’ fleet. In each piece, Nemelc evoke a sense of peace and tranquility, even in a busy city. Across her artworks, Nemelc’s pieces evoke a sense freedom; in each piece, Land and Woman across space and time are safe and free to exist outside of the confines of modern society. We speak to Nemelc about exploration, femaleness, and finding the importance in the interconnectivity that surrounds us.

Bianca in her studio. October 2022. Courtesy of Bianca Nemelc.

As a Dominican, Indonesian, and Surinamese artist from New York, how do you navigate identity within your pieces?

My identity is the foundation of my artwork and I think that any painting I create, is rooted in a desire to reconnect: to myself, to the lands of my ancestors, to the place I’m standing right now. And to the places I have never been. The inspirations in my work always come back to the home within me.

How do you navigate cultivating with The Land while existing primarily in a concrete city?

I think the first step for me was understanding that this city exists on top of land with rich indigenous history with deep roots to the earth. I feel lucky that being from uptown, I don’t feel so engulfed by the city. Inwood has the last remaining natural forest of NYC, so I make a conscious effort to stay present. I’m an avid bird watcher, and I absolutely love to think by the river. Being in the city it’s important to carve out the space to honor the living world around you outside of the hustle, it keeps you grounded.

So much of your work centers and explores the relationships between Brown bodies, the Earth, and Mother Nature. What does the body-as-landscape mean to you, and why are you driven to marry the two?  

It’s part of my humanness to see myself in the world, and it’s a beautifully important practice to cultivate connection and sisterhood with the earth. For me, creating these figurative landscapes is a way to acknowledge and to validate a sense of connection and belonging. I also think that once you can establish that connection, it becomes easier to care, and to steward over the earth and the people around you. There is power in that visualization.

Nemelc, Bianca. Tender Swim. 2022, acrylic paint on stretched canvas. Courtesy of Artist.

In your pieces, female bodies are the focus. Who are you speaking to through your art, and whose experiences do you seek to evoke and deconstruct in these works?

I have a deep connection to my body, to my brown skin, and it is a celebration of that. I don’t think I’m trying to speak to anyone, but I do hope that those who find my work, find a way to connect with it. There is enough historical context and imagery viewing the female form- especially black and brown female forms, through a very specific lens, and my offering is a lens of joy, rest, and abundance.

One of the most striking elements of your pieces is scale. What brought you to creating pieces in larger formats?

Scale has always been important in the work. It allows the figure to literally take up space, existing as both welcoming and also a bit overwhelming. I love the idea of needing to look around the entirety of a work to find her, you have to sit and really take it in.

You were commissioned by National Geographic/Lindblad Expeditions to create eleven art works for their 'Polar Exhibition', pieces that will permanently live aboard one of their Expedition vessels. These paintings can be viewed on the Lindblad Resolution Ship, for any taking a trip to the Antarctic. How did this come about, and how did you choose what to create for this exhibit?

I was invited to be part of this through a wonderful Climate Artist, Zaria Lynn. The work that I created for this exhibit were some of my first dives into figurative landscapes, and it allowed me to question and understand the importance of my own voice in the conversations of climate activism. Imagining brown bodies in frozen landscapes drives home that idea of interconnection. No matter if it is snow, or beach, Women of color are disproportionately affected by climate change, and this project allowed me to create landscapes where brown bodies are at the forefront, and having that presence in a polar landscape is saying, “Hey, we are part of this conversation."

Nemelc, Bianca. The Dive. 2023, acrylic paint on stretched canvas. Courtesy of Cooper Dodds.

The Antarctic is a place full of life, yet, in a world whose natural wonders are in a battle against climate change, is fleeting. What does to have your art is quite literally enmeshed with the natural world in this way?

It adds an honesty to the work. Body and land have always been and will always be intertwined from the molecular level to the land policies that affect the people who inhabit it. I like to think my work visualizes the obvious. It’s my love letter to this earth, my attempt at building bridges to the past and the future. 

There is a deep connection between your Self and Mother Nature. When she speaks to you, how do you interpret her teachings?

My relationship to the Earth has always been special in the way it can only be as a city kid, most of my childhood was playing on the rocks of the Hudson river on 155th street, and as I got older, it was where I would run to when I needed a moment of peace. So mother nature has always spoken to me through the water, and that comes through in my artwork. I have a very special love for the river and the ocean as a protector of sorts.. 

Thinking about all the works you've created thus far, what does each piece teach you?

Imagination has the power to shift the world. Truly. Art is a vehicle for conversation, and for every person who has been drawn to my paintings, it has shown me that many of us are seeking the same thing-reconnection to the earth.

Bianca in her studio. March 2023. Courtesy of Bianca Nemelc.