Nina Saunders

Nina Saunders is a UK-based artist and known for her unique approach to disrupting the familiarity of everyday objects through thought-provoking sculptures. Using found items such as furniture and taxidermied animals, she transforms them in ways that often evoke surrealistic connotations. By altering elements of familiar objects like armchairs and loveseats, Saunders strips them of their domestic utility, creating sensational, humorous, and what one might render as arbitrary compositions, which makes them refreshingly imaginative.

Initially, her praxis focused on furniture, but her more recent works incorporate taxidermied animals, shifting her thematic exploration from the domestic sphere to untamed realms. Saunders’ juxtaposition of these elements emphasises emotions and events we often suppress, bringing them to the surface. By reimagining quotidian objects, she challenges traditional perspectives and provokes reflection.

Nina Saunders (b. 1958, Odense) is educated from Central St. Martin’s College of Art and Design in London. Her work has been showcased worldwide, including at KUNSTEN Museum of Modern Art, Aalborg (2017); the 53rd Venice Biennale, Danish and Nordic Pavilions (2009); and Bonhams, London (2018), to name a few. She is included in the collections of prestigious institutions such as the Victoria and Albert Museum, The Hayward Gallery, Saatchi Gallery, Kunsten Museum of Modern Art, and Malmö Konstmuseum.