Nydia Blas

Nydia Blas is a visual artist, originally from New York, who now resides in Georgia. Her work primarily focuses on the body and the reclamation of the self.

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Nydia received a B.S. in cinema and photography, with a minor in African diaspora studies, from Ithaca College before earning an M.F.A. from Syracuse University in the College of Visual and Performing Arts. 

Using a variety of media including photography, collage, video, and books to explore her life as a girl, woman, and mother, her photographs create a physical and allegorical space presented through a Black feminine lens.

She is particularly recognised for her portraiture series The Girls Who Spun Gold. Working with teenage girls she met after founding a Girl Empowerment Group in Ithaca, Nydia took photographs of the group as a way to empower them and to emphasise the value of their individual differences.

‘I wanted the girls to see themselves reflected in my work. To see these photographs as a space for them to reside, in the same way that the Girl Empowerment Group was created and functioned as a space that we made together where their lives, concerns, and feelings were being addressed and explored.’ Nydia Blas

Nydia’s photographs have been commissioned by The New York Times, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and The Washington Post, to name a few. Besides her professional art practice, Nydia is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art and Visual Culture at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia. 

Connect with Nydia | nydiablas.com/ | Instagram |


Noémie Goudal


Oksana Yushko