A liza Nisenbaum is a Brooklyn-based. Her early work features small still-lives of flowers and large, colorful abstractions. In 2012, Nisenbaum started to work as an art and English teacher at Tania Bruguera’s project, a community center called Immigrant Movement International. She took her students to visit the MET and eventually began to paint them as a way to get to know them better. This was the catalyst to her recent work where she features subjects of undocumented immigrants pictured in interiors and private spaces. For the artist, painting these portraits serves as a political act, giving an intimate view of some of society’s most overlooked members. Color is a central feature to her work. The artists paints small and contrasting colors side by side to show the variation in her sitter’s skin tone. She also paints form life, spending long periods of t.mes with her sitters, creating a collaborative process and giving agency to the sitter on how they are represented.

Nisenbaum is represented by Anton Kern Gallery and has been exhibited in museums across the US and Europe.