NANCY BRANDSMA
‘The Light In My Dark’, Nancy Brandsma. Oil on birch panel, 16 × 16 in.
Nancy Brandsma is a contemporary abstract artist known for her bold, predominantly monochromatic oil paintings. Minimalist in composition yet rich in movement and texture, her work reflects the complexity and rhythm of the human mind through spontaneous gesture. Her deeply textured surfaces shift with changing light and perspective, revealing subtleties that unfold as the viewer moves around the work.
Born in Montreal in 1975, Nancy has been actively involved in Ottawa’s Franco-Ontarian arts community since 2009. Her work has been presented in solo, group, and juried exhibitions in Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal and New York City, as well as throughout Ontario and Québec. She divides her time between painting in her studio and teaching art in her community. Her work can be found in private collections across North America and in published catalogues.
Nancy has an upcoming solo show “I Know You Want To Touch” at Electric Gallery from February 20th to March 21st 2027.
“I KNOW YOU WANT TO TOUCH…
My phone doesn't always recognize my fingers. A letter disappears, a space doesn't register, and sometimes the screen seems unaware that I have touched it at all. I have come to think of these moments as a kind of “ghost touch”—my fingers are there, but somehow they don't register. This experience has made me increasingly aware of what it means for touch to be recognized, recorded and remembered.
My paintings explore the opposite. Working intuitively with oil paint and a fork, I build highly textured, swirling surfaces without a predetermined plan. I am drawn to materials that resist, record and remember the hand. Each gesture leaves a trace. Like a fingerprint, every surface is unique: the evidence of a real body, at a real moment, unable to be repeated.
There is an irony in the way people respond to these paintings. Their surfaces can look almost edible—like icing on a cake—and viewers often want to reach out and touch them. Yet we have been taught not to touch art. Meanwhile, we touch the smooth glass of our phones constantly to communicate, while the surface itself offers nothing to feel.
My work exists between these two worlds: touch and restraint, presence and absence, the digital and the physical. Texture becomes more than a visual element. It becomes evidence—a trace of presence made visible.”
-Nancy Brandsma