BIOGRAPHY

BIOGRAPHY
Nansi Bielanski Gallup is a painter and sculptor whose work explores the intersection of observation, memory, and imagination. For more than four decades, she has developed a studio practice that moves fluidly between figure, landscape, and underwater subjects, drawing upon direct observation while embracing the ways memory and emotion reshape experience.
Gallup holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from Loyola Marymount University. Before returning to painting and sculpture as a full-time profession in 2001, she worked as an award-winning television director and producer, creating commercial and documentary projects in the United States and Europe. That experience continues to inform her interest in visual storytelling and the relationship between observation and interpretation.

Her work has been exhibited at institutions including the Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art, the Fisher Museum of Art at USC, Carnegie Art Museum, ICoNic Arts Museum, and California Nature Art Museum. She was honored as Artist in Residence at the Carnegie Art Museum and presented a solo exhibition at the CAM Studio Gallery. Her work is included in public and private collections, including those of Bank of America and Loyola Marymount University.

In recent years, Gallup's work has been increasingly informed by extended periods of immersion in remote marine environments throughout the South Pacific. In 2022, she and painter David Gallup acquired an uninhabited island in Vanuatu and established a reef-adjacent studio where they work directly from experiences gathered beneath the surface of the sea. The studio allows them to work from direct experience and memory while minimizing reliance on photographic reference. These experiences have expanded an ongoing exploration of the boundary between the observed world and the remembered one, resulting in paintings that blur the boundary between observation and imagination.
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Alongside her individual practice, Gallup has spent the past decade developing a collaborative body of work with painter David Gallup. Their shared paintings, rooted in observation, memory, and interpretation, have been exhibited in museums and galleries throughout North America.

David and Nansi during construction of the boat house at Molono Island, Vanuatu

Artists Nansi J. Bielanski and David C. Gallup being awarded the "American Art Collector" Award for Artistic Excellence for "A Deeper Love"  by Artist and President Peter Adams at the 104th California Art Club Gold Medal Juried Exhibition at the USC Fisher Museum of Art