The revered painter of vibrant portraits has celebrated the courage of Merseyside health staff – without leaving LA. She reveals how she captured her sitters in scrubs, asleep and even blowing the bagpipes
Is there still hope? You would always think so, looking at the work of Mexican-born artist Aliza Nisenbaum. Known for her vibrant and intimate portraits of overlooked communities, she has spent her career making the marginalised visible. Her new show at Tate Liverpool pays tribute to Merseyside healthcare workers, whom she has painted remotely, dividing them into two large-scale group portraits and 11 individual ones. This is the result of extended video calls with 26 hospital staff, including student nurses, a pulmonologist and a porter.
“It’s a huge task to do my sitters justice,” Nisenbaum tells me on a Zoom call from her temporary studio in Los Angeles, where she’s spent the greatest part of the year (she normally resides in New York). “But in this case even more so, because they’re putting their lives on the line.” This new commission is exhibited alongside existing works, including another group portrait – of tube workers made during Nisenbaum’s residency at Brixton underground station in 2019.