Nene Humphrey

Humphrey's sculptures reference minimalism’s formal severity while also examining it critically, drawing comparisons to post-minimal sculptors like Eva Hesse.

Collaborators include director Mallory Catlett, musicians Roberto Carlos Lange, Matana Roberts, Zibuokle Martinaityte, Anaïs Maviel, cellist Clare Monfredo and video and sound designer Simon Harding.

Following the death of her husband in 2006,[19] Humphrey embarked upon a multidisciplinary project reflecting on the psychological process of mourning and its physiological index in the mourner's brain titled Circling the Center.

[15] To combat the isolation of grief, and return the practice to its communal roots, Humphrey developed a series of multi-media installations and performances that incorporate all her research interests.

[15] Its first iteration debuted at Lesley Heller Gallery in 2009 under the title, The Plain Sense of Things, an installation that included wall-based sculptures of braided wire.

Of the multiple levels of emotion the exhibition confronted, New York Times critic Holland Cotter wrote, “Order and chaos do battle here; the territory charted is both global… and microscopic.”[20] From 2009 to 2017, Humphrey staged several iterations of Circling the Center as a performance, inviting the audience to participate in a communal act of remembrance.

[15] Such multimedia collaborations characterize Humphrey's recent work and place the artist in what Cristina Albu referred to as "...the role of [a] hidden orchestrator of a drama that transcends individual tragedy.

[22] A second iteration of Transmission that incorporated a sound recording of the poem “If You Were to Peer into the Mourner’s Skull” by Tom Sleigh was shown at the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts in 2019, as part of In the Presence of Absence, curated by Jillian Steinhauer.

The 2023 iteration shown at Catskill Art Space in Livingston Manor, NY, incorporated installations of Humphrey’s scroll drawings with photographs and video images of the microscopic amygdala that the artist has been working with at the LeDoux lab.

In Searching (2021-2022) Humphrey displays these videos in scientific-looking boxes alongside magnifying glasses, recreating for the viewer the optical process from which she has been drawing for fifteen years.

[24] Throughout the installation, a layered and repetitive soundtrack written and recorded by Matana Roberts evokes call and response, tapping into the emotional and biological feedback loops on display.

Receiving, 1995
Loculus, Detail, 2000
Menerbes, drawing, 2009
Installation view, This Like A Dream Keeps Other Time, 2023