Nina Vichayapai is an artist. Orienting her belonging somewhere between the United States, where she lives, and Thailand, where she was born, has resulted in her searching the globalized world for signs and representations of belonging. Through researching a wide range of subjects such as non-native plants that have naturalized in US soil, to artifacts of early Asian Americans in the form of hundred-year old soy sauce jars, Nina excavates for symbols of belonging in the world around her. Her recent projects include organizing road trips to explore Asian American histories in rural areas, curating an art gallery on the dashboard of her car, and starting a garden from community contributed seed paper wishes for the earth.
Her work has been shown nationally and locally with institutions such as the Wing Luke Museum, the Henry Art Gallery, and the Bellevue Art Museum. She has been an artist in residence with Caldera, Inscape Arts and Cultural Center, Deception Pass State Park, Centrum, and Rockland. She has also been the recipient of several public and private commissions including with Meta Arts, Homes for Good, Lake Sammamish State Park, and the Cities of Redmond, Ellensburg, and Edmonds.
She graduated from the California College of the Arts with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2017. Nina currently lives in the Pacific Northwest and when she is not making art she can be found turning roadside fruit into jam, taking pictures of crows, or trail running in the rain.
Instagram: @Nvichayapai
Email: Nvichayapai@gmail.com
Photo credit to the Museum of Flight Tukwila