“This is rich material, and Nettler handles it adroitly with her sculptures and drawings which are sparsely black and white, but feel as if they can engulf you.”
Cate McQuaid, Boston Globe, 10/24/12
“It’s the kind of forest Red Riding Hood might meet a wolf in, or through which Hansel and Gretel might leave a trail of breadcrumbs. Like the massive boreal forests that grow to the north, at the edge of human existence, this is a surreal forest that grows at the edge of our consciousness. Dreamlike… but somehow beguiling and foreboding.”
Mark Roessler, Valley Advocate, 6/3/10
“Surrounded by wraparound charcoal murals, Nettler’s life-size, black-and-white sculpted tree trunks seem to pull viewers into the gallery. Walking toward them is like entering a forest. Enveloping and entrapping, branchless tree trunks loom above…. The enclosing arrangement simultaneously soothes and threatens, protects and intimidates.”
Lisa Amato Lynch, Art New England, 10/06
“The dizzying monochromatic landscape surrounds you… it affects you physically, being effervescent and brooding at the same time…the charcoal work is superb.”
William Jaeger, Albany Times-Union, 10/94
“…the drawing is so filled with energy that the environment…seems infused with the exhilaration one feels in the presence of a real waterfall.”
Peg Churchill Wright, Albany Press, 11/94
Lydia exhibits site-specific installations, drawings, paintings on paper, and public art. She has had solo exhibits at museums, university galleries, and art centers including the Albany Institute of Art, Brandeis University, Smith College, the Springfield Museum of Fine Arts, the Montserrat College of Art, the University of Massachusetts, and Wheelock College.
Lydia’s permanent public art is installed in schools and rest homes in New England. She has received numerous arts grants for public art projects.
She has exhibited in two person and group shows at museums, university galleries, and art centers including the Boston Center for the Arts, Gallery 825 in L.A., La Ferme du Grand-Cachot-de-Vent in Switzerland, Hampshire College, Holyoke Museum, the Mass Mutual Convention Center, the Newton Art Center, the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, the Springfield Museum of Fine Arts, the University of Massachusetts, Western New England College, Westfield State College, Wheaton College, and Yale University.
Lydia is currently working on a graphic novel to be published in 2024. It explores the legacy of war and debilitating illness over three generations and is comprised of 100 large painted images and text. The paintings stand alone as a narrative of overcoming adversity over time, and Lydia has begun exhibiting them in L.A. and in 2024 in Switzerland.
Lydia was an art and writing resident at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris from 2017-2018. She has attended artist residencies at the American Academy in Rome, CAMAC in France, and the Vermont Studio Center. Her graphics have been in various magazines, journals, brochures and posters.
Her community involvement extends to membership in various artist organizations, including the Los Angeles Art Association, and arts advocacy work, including the Art Miles Project — supervising of a youth mural for a 2010 UNESCO exhibition.
Lydia’s work has been reviewed in Art New England, the Boston Globe, the New Haven Advocate, the Albany Times Union, the Albany Press, the Springfield Republican, the Valley Advocate, the Jewish Advocate, the Daily Hampshire Gazette, the Amherst Bulletin, and ArtSake, the Mass Cultural Council online journal.
