Nastassja Swift: 2024 Brandford/Elliott Award

The winner of this year's Textile Society of America award, Brandford/Elliott Award for Excellence in Fiber Art Recipient, Nastassja Swift is a multi-disciplinary artist transforming the realm of portraiture through her innovative use of wool, creating pieces that resonate with themes of geographical histories, ancestry, ritual practices, and community. A proud alumna of Virginia Commonwealth University, she holds a BFA in Painting and Printmaking as well as Craft and Material Studies. Recently, Nastassja was honored as the 2024 Brandford Elliott Awardee by the Textile Society of America. Her accolades also include the 2023 Craft Research Fund Artist Fellowship from the Center for Craft, a VMFA Fellowship, the Dr. Doris Derby Award, the Art Matters Fellowship Award, and the inaugural Black Box Press Foundation Art as Activism Grant. She is also a recipient of a Virginia Commission for the Arts Fellowship and was nominated for the 2024 Joan Mitchell Foundation Fellowship.

Image: “so I filled my nest with flowers from your garden”, 2023, wool, glass beads, wood, foam3, 0 x 12 x 12 inches. Photograph courtesy of David Hunter Hale
Image above: Portrait of Nastassja Swift.

In 2022, Nastassja was invited to serve as a Distinguished Fellow at the Penland School of Craft, marking a significant milestone shortly followed by her selection for a Public Arts Commission in Richmond, VA, her first large-scale public art project.

Nastassja's work has been exhibited and presented in esteemed institutions both nationally and internationally, including VCUQatar, Carl Freedman Gallery in the UK, the Reginald F. Lewis Museum, Virginia MoCA, Boston University Art Galleries, the University of Florida, the SCAD Museum of Art, Ball State University, and various galleries along the East Coast. She has participated in numerous artist residencies across the United States, including the Vermont Studio Center, Penland School of Craft, the Wassaic Project in New York, SPACES in Ohio, and MASS MoCA. Her work has been featured in several publications, including SomeMagazine in Berlin, RVA Magazine, Colossal, and Arts and Culture Texas, among others.

Image: “Passage, when momma lets my braids flow down my back“, In collaboration with stylists Kiki Jewell, Nyja Amos, and Gracie Jewell, 2021, wool, synthetic braiding hair, wood, plaster, resin, satin, 64 x 15 x 15 inches. Photograph courtesy of David Hunter Hale. 

The Textile Society of America's annual Symposium returns from 12-17 November 2024 exploring the theme, “Shifts and Strands: Rethinking the Possibilities and Potentials of Textiles”, inviting us to reflect on the many exciting shifts in textiles as historical and contemporary, cultural, creative, scholarly, political, discursive, and scientific practices.

Find out more and book your ticket:
textilesocietyofamerica.org/symposia