BIO (2026)
 

Nancy Rodrigo (b. 1961 NYC) is a Brooklyn-born and raised Venezuelan Puerto Rican Dominican American queer artist, therapist, educator, and activist who emerged within the Second Wave feminist East Village gallery scene.  Featured in Hyperallergic for her paintings in the Salon des Refusés 2024 at the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition (BWAC), Rodrigo has exhibited at the Leslie Lohman Museum, Franklin Furnace, La Mama, A.I.R. Gallery, Van der Plas Gallery, Washington Square East Gallery, SOHO20 Gallery, and Semaphore East Gallery, among others.  She is a member of the Feminist Art Project (College Art Association), three-time exhibitor in the Every Woman Biennial, a past judge for the Queer Art Prize, and active in Brooklyn recovery, LGBTQIA+, and art communities.

As a queer mother, feminist, AIDS activist, and social worker amidst the art and political scene of the 1980s, Rodrigo’s early mentors were Miriam Schapiro, gallerists Bernice Steinbaum, and Annie Heron.  Feminist Paintings, her first solo exhibition at the Washington Square East Gallery (1984), emerged the same year as the birth of her child.  Rodrigo went on to become an activist with Repro Rights and ACT UP, raising her son in Park Slope, Brooklyn’s burgeoning queer community.  Concurrent with exhibiting throughout the 1980s and 1990s in gallery and alternative art spaces, she developed a social art practice as an art facilitator for people living with AIDS, cancer, and Alzheimer's, and a crisis counselor for the NYC Anti-Violence Project. 

Nancy completed a BS in human services and fine art from Empire State College, SUNY, and studied etching and engraving at the National Academy School of Fine Arts.  Later, while earning a Master’s degree from Hunter College School of Social Work CUNY, her studies were paused due to autoimmune disease.  Completing an internship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, she pursued studies in psycho-oncology, pain and palliative care, end of life support, quality of life, and art therapy, each of which have informed the breadth of her art practice.

Since 1999, Rodrigo has wrestled with multiple autoimmune conditions, which eventually rendered her disabled.  In spite of such, drawing upon a multitude of these life experiences and studies, she maintains an active daily art practice, and regularly exhibits her work, through drawings, paintings, and occasionally installation, comics, video, and collaborative works. 

To follow her art, exhibitions, work with students, and romps through Prospect Park and Greenwood Cemetery, find her on Instagram, @brooklynsoul61 and #nancyrodrigoart.