The Source Never Diminishes
Nina Elder
November 6, 2025 – March 7, 2026
Marie Walsh Sharpe Gallery
Ent Center for the Arts
The Source Never Diminishes
Nina Elder is a transdisciplinary artist, writer, and educator whose work bridges art, science, and social justice. Born in Colorado Springs but since living and practicing around the world, Elder’s practice is deeply rooted in field research and collaboration with scientists, often focusing on geologic processes, climate disruption, and cultural change. Her drawings incorporate unconventional materials like wildfire ash and pulverized rocks, collected from landscapes marked by extraction and ecological upheaval. Elder’s art invites viewers to confront the complexities of environmental grief and transformation through both scientific inquiry and poetic reflection.
Central to Elder’s practice is the concept of solastalgia, a term coined by philosopher Glenn Albrecht to describe the emotional distress caused by environmental change while still being in one’s home. Elder’s Solastalgic Archive is a participatory project that collects objects and stories reflecting this emotional terrain—ranging from rock samples to photographs and personal artifacts. Through this archive, Elder explores the tension between memory and loss, permanence and transience, and the spiritual resonance of ecological shifts. Her work challenges traditional museum practices by emphasizing the lived, emotional, and communal dimensions of environmental change, offering a space for reflection and healing in the face of climate anxiety.
Elder’s newest body of work, Black Holes & Voids, expands this inquiry into speculative and surreal territory. This series includes drawings, sculptures, videos, and books that embrace ecological grief with humor, empathy, and mystery. Elder uses sequined trash, breath-based monoprints, and looping video spells to conjure a “dark disco ball” of collapse and transformation. These works imagine human connection to cycles of emergence and extinction, offering a playful yet profound meditation on endings and beginnings. The Source Never Diminishes showcases the breadth of Elder’s practice, including selections from theses latest series and never-before-seen work, inviting audiences to engage with her vision of art as a source of resilience, joy, curiosity, and wonder with a call for action in turbulent times.
IMPORTANT DATES
Exhibition On-View:
November 6, 2025 – March 7, 2026
Opening Reception:
Thursday, November 6th, 2025, 5-7 pm
Marie Walsh Sharpe Gallery
*FREE Admission, no registration needed
Kite Workshop:
Saturday, November 15th, 2025, 12-3 pm
Marie Walsh Sharpe Gallery
*Space is limited. Tickets are FREE and required for this event*
VACS Lecture with Nina Elder:
Thursday, February 12th, 2026, 6-7 pm
Chapman Recital Hall
*registration required, tickets available below
Gallery hours:
Thursday - Saturday, 1 - 6 p.m., or by appointment
email: gallery@uccs.edu | call: 719-255-3504
About Nina Elder
Artist and researcher Nina Elder creates projects that reveal humanity’s dependence on, and interruption of, the natural world. With a focus on changing cultures and ecologies, Nina advocates for collaboration, fostering relationships between institutions, artists, scientists and diverse communities. Because Nina is devoted to rural communities and often overlooked places, she regularly works outside of urban cultural centers and the commercial art world. Nina lectures as a visiting artist/scholar at universities, develops publicly engaged programs, and consults with organizations that seek to grow through interdisciplinary programming.
Nina’s artwork is widely exhibited and has been featured in Art in America, VICE Magazine, and on PBS. Her research has been supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation, the Rauschenberg Foundation award for Arts & Activism, the Pollock Krasner Foundation, and the Mellon Foundation. She has recently held positions as an Art + Environment Research Fellow at the Nevada Museum of Art, a Polar Lab Research Fellow at the Anchorage Museum, and a Researcher in Residence in the Art and Ecology Program at the University of New Mexico. She migrates between rural Colorado and site-specific projects.
Photos and Videos by Wes Magyar, Stellar Propeller Studio, and Joshua Dorado, for the Galleries of Contemporary Art at UCCS, 2025