Nancy Dwyer (b. 1954)

Nancy Dwyer has been exhibiting her word sculptures, paintings, and multimedia installations worldwide for more than thirty years. Dwyer was one of the co-founders of Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center in 1974. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, she created art from appropriated images, using films, television, newspapers, magazines and other forms of popular culture as resources. She also became one of the first to utilize cutting-edge computer technology in production of her artwork.

BIG EGO was originally produced in 1990 as helium-filled balloons left un-tethered so the letters could billow and bounce with indoor air currents. This new version was fabricated specifically for the Burchfield Penney Art Center so it could be exhibited longer than a few hours. Its blower-activated inflation provides different nuanced meanings associated with crass advertisements and garish lawn ornaments, in addition to punning phrases that readily come to mind—like hot air, blow-hard, and inflated ego—that we attribute to self-absorbed people in many environments and professions. (Nancy Weekly, Head of Collections and Charles Cary Rumsey Curator, 2011)