After many years as a successful artist in New York, Nancy Wyllie now works out of a seaside studio in N. Kingstown, Rhode Island. Trained as a painter in the classical tradition, her studio practice shifted from realism to abstraction in 2019. A 21st century sensibility informs each painting with a fresh interpretation of marine life found in New England, the Caribbean and Central America. These dimensional seascapes are carefully layered as a means of creating active surfaces that capture the ever changing play of light and movement on the ocean surface and in its depths. As an award winning independent filmmaker, Wyllie incorporates a cinematic ‘more than one moment in time’ element into each painting.
Wyllie holds Master’s degrees from RISD and Tulane University. Following completion of graduate school programs, she studied film at NYU. As a Professor of Art & Digital Media, she taught at Ithaca College, RISD, Vermont College of Norwich University (MFA faculty) and at CCRI where she served as Art Department Chair.
Her work resides in public and private collections including Newcomb Art Museum, Tulane University and The State Darwin Museum in Moscow. Her marine life inspired works have been placed in numerous healthcare and hospitality settings including the Administrative Offices at Boston Children’s Hospital.