Bio
Nora Hartlaub (b. 1977, Alamogordo, NM) holds a BFA from the Cleveland Institute of Art and an MFA from Western Carolina University. She has exhibited in both traditional and unconventional spaces, including CAM Raleigh (NC), The Peanut Factory (Edenton, NC), the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition (New York, NY), and ArtFields (Lake City, SC). Highlights include a juror’s award at CAM Raleigh from Nat Trotman, Curator of Performance and Media at the Guggenheim; a residency at the Santa Fe Art Institute; and the OBX Art Truck, a community-engaged gallery she ran out of the bed of a beat-up 1991 F-150. She is currently pursuing a degree in counseling and spends her free time with her senior pets: a gigantic German Shepherd and a sweet gray tabby.
Artist Statement
My work addresses climate in its many forms: environmental, social, and personal. I often begin with found or recycled materials and transform them through labor-intensive processes, so that the materials and methods carry the meaning of each body of work. Stack Collapse, for example, consists of nearly 1,400 plaster casts of model-train-scale shipping containers, embedded with debris I collected after Tropical Storm Fred (2021) struck the farm where I was working. Made over the course of a year, the piece speaks to how long recovery takes, and the number of casts mirrors the number of shipping containers lost at sea that year. Across all of it, I’m searching for healing and hope through care and repair.
To see what’s happening in the studio and recent works that haven’t made it onto this site yet please visit @stackcollapse on Instagram or click the icon below.