Samantha Nye

Samantha Nye (born 1980) is an American video artist and painter. A 2023 Guggenheim Fellow, her work focuses on body image in elderly women and non-binary people. Early life and career Samantha Nye was born in 1980 in Hollywood, Florida, and raised in Miami, where she was "steeped in a South Beach aesthetic". She recalled creating early works focused on "goddess" imagery in high school, reflecting an early interest in representations of the body and identity. In 2018, she obtained her MFA in painting from Columbia University School of the Arts. During her early artistic development, Nye became interested in figurative painting and the representation of the human body, which would later become central to her work. Her time at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University emphasized interdisciplinary approaches, allowing her to work across painting, video, and installation. While completing her MFA at Columbia University, Nye further developed narrative-driven work that explored identity, relationships, and embodied experience, themes that continue throughout her artistic practice. where a screen plays remakes of scopitone videos featuring nonbinary and trans people and elderly women. Boston Art Review called My Heart’s in a Whirl one of their "Favorite Art Happenings of 2021".

Her video Army of Love, which explores themes of intimacy and care within marginalized communities, was featured in the 2022 Dutch exhibition Come Alive, The Power of Pleasure. In 2023, she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in Film and Video. In November 2024, the New Yorker reported that for her newest video project, she was doing a "lesbian takeover" of the Belvedere Guest House for Men in Cherry Grove, New York; titled Femininity, it required a casting call involving a few dozen middle-aged to elderly queer women. She also worked with Todd Stong for the 2025 joint exhibition Split Fountain, where she did three oil paintings of nude women. Nye is lesbian.

Themes and style Nye’s work focuses on representations of the body, particularly in relation to aging, gender, and queer identity. Her practice often centers on elderly women and non-binary individuals, groups that are frequently underrepresented in visual culture.

Her work draws on personal experiences, including relationships with older women in her community, which inform her interest in intimacy, care, and intergenerational connection.

Through both painting and video, she challenges conventional ideas of beauty and desirability by presenting bodies in non-idealized and emotionally complex ways.

Selected works My Heart’s in a Whirl (2021) Army of Love (video) Femininity (video project) Attractive People, Doing Attractive Things in Attractive Places—Double Your Pleasure—Double Your Pleasure (painting series, 2019–) Split Fountain (with Todd Stong, 2025) Personal life Nye is based in Philadelphia, where she continues her artistic practice and teaching. Her identity as a lesbian has been discussed in relation to her artistic practice, particularly in her focus on queer relationships and representation.