About the Artist
Nancy A. Scherl is a fine art portrait photographer based in New York City. She distinguishes between her staged portraiture series, which she refers to as her staged realities and her visual, non-staged, stories which she refers to as her non-staged realities–the former being social commentary; the latter being social documentary. Stylistically, Nancy emulates cinema verite’ and incorporates Cartier Bresson’s decisive moment in her work, and she often blurs the boundaries between pictorial, social documentary and street genres.
In her staged portraiture, Nancy offers subtle direction, and asks her subjects to “act out” what they feel when they’re experiencing a specific circumstance, in a specific setting. The setting is frequently enhanced with formal lighting to create a specific ambience. Her portraits often invoke metaphor. Working with this genre, her camerawork may include a predetermined background and controlled lighting, but she will capture her subject’s expressions and gestures spontaneously, as she notices them in her camera frame.
In Nancy’s social documentary work, she documents what is unique to individuals or to the culture of a people. She is interested in capturing the psychological aspects of both. This work is not staged, and Nancy relies on using the ‘decisive moment’ to capture her subjects.
In Nancy’s earlier work, (Please reference Nancy’s Archives gallery) her fictionalized , mixed media portraits are constructions which she refers to as her ‘staged fantasies'. As a provocateur, she lures viewers into her scientifically impossible visual worlds, designed to intrigue viewers into considering anew their formerly trusted points of view and aspects of the human condition. (Macrocosmic Exaggerations Gallery). Nancy has also enjoyed working with mixed media and alternative processes such as with encaustic, polaroid transfers, cyanotypes, ecodyes on fabric and gold leaf (visit her Archives gallery).
Nancy completed an MFA in Photography, Video and Related Media at New York City’s School of Visual Arts, following her undergraduate studies in documentary and fine art photography at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is a Life Member of the American Society of Media Photographers, where she served as a board member from 2016 to 2019. Nancy served as board member of the Katonah Museum Artist’s Association in Katonah, NY (2017-2024) as President emerita, (2020-2022), as well as Treasurer, Archivist and Co-Chair of Programs. She founded, produced and moderated SHOP-TALK, a round table discussion series about art, produced for the KMAA.
Scherl has exhibited globally including at FotoNostrum Mediterranean House of Photography, PX3 Espace Beaurepaire, A Smith Gallery, Praxis Gallery, Photoplace Gallery, South X Southeast, Southeast Center for Photography, The Katonah Museum of Art, The Hammond Museum and the Griffin Museum of Photography. She is a two time finalist of Photolucida Critical Mass Top 200 (2019, 2023) and is the recipient of many other awards such as: Arthur Griffin Legacy Award, International Color Awards, The Tokyo International Foto Awards, Budapest International Foto Awards, PX3 Prix de la Photographie Paris, International Photography Awards, and was an Overall Winner of the Julia Margaret Cameron –The World Wide Photography Gala Awards where she had a solo show in Barcelona. Her work is in numerous permanent collections. (Please reference her CV).