04/29/2026
Nina Jordan, an exceptional artist and dear friend of the gallery, passed away peacefully at home last week at the age of 61, following a courageous three-year battle with brain cancer.
Nina’s prints were the subject of two solo exhibitions at Planthouse: “Floods and Houses” in 2022 and “homesearch”in 2024. Both shows reflected her unique vision and out-sized talent. In November 2023, she curated “Into this world,” a group exhibition for the gallery. Weeks later, she would be diagnosed with a glioblastoma.
As she bravely faced a terminal illness, she poured her heart into her work. Driven to complete projects, she kept creating art as long as she could. In 2024, Nina was selected for the “New Voices” exhibition at the Print Center in New York, a meaningful recognition. At the Planthouse, we had the privilege of introducing her work to curators at major institutions. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New York Public Library, the Bowdoin College Museum of Art, and the Beinecke Library at Yale University all acquired prints from our exhibitions into their collections.
A painterly printmaker, she made her raw, evocative woodblock prints in her studio from found wood. Deeply sensitive to struggle, Nina captured this in her haunting images of homes, which spoke to the larger issues of our time: climate change and the vanishing American dream.
“The houses tell the story of our many different economic and personal realities. In appropriating these images, I speak of the conflict between home as commodity and home as habitat essential to survival. With my prints, I ask: who lives in this house, who wants to live in this house?” – Nina Jordan
Nina will be deeply missed by the Planthouse. We extend our heartfelt sympathies to her mother, Kathleen Widdoes, her husband, Haym Gross, and her son Joe, and our thoughts are with them at this time.
