Celebrating faculty: Nestor Gil

As an artist, Nestor Gil approaches his work in the spirit of play. “I play with ideas, personal histories … materials, the meanings materials carry, and the meanings I can evoke from them,” he says. | Photo by Rick Smith

What is the focus of your research?

I am a maker.  Making is my area of investigation. First and foremost, the byproduct of my work is made things.  By “things,” I mean objects and images, performances and events, and opportunities for observation and participation. By “work,” I mean play.  I play with ideas, personal histories, and how they map onto or resist my understanding of larger histories. I play with materials, the meanings materials carry, and the meanings I can evoke from them through games like juxtaposition and defamiliarization. 

I see art as a social activity and do not subscribe to the myth of solitary genius. I take part in an activity that is literally as old as our humanity. I stand at its edge, anchoring one foot on the precipice and letting the other float just beyond it, asking, “What’s new?”

How do students benefit from your scholarship and research? 

Students in the sculpture studio benefit far more from their own scholarship and research than they ever could from mine. If there is a benefit to having me in the studio, it comes in the form of the brightest fan, harshest critic, and most enthusiastic supporter of the work students undertake. If I model the acts—think, make, consider, make again—I can hope that students will follow the model. Those who do discover the value of their process and investigation. They unlock for themselves novel ways of examining and responding to their experience of the world.

What will you be teaching in the fall? 

In fall 2025, I will be teaching Sculpture I as well as Materials and Methods. I love teaching both of these courses. Sculpture I is a chance to light fires and point students toward their sometimes-unknown creative selves, which is an incredible thing I am honored to witness. Materials and Methods brings students who already have a relationship with their own making into a space where we challenge those relationships and consider unfamiliar ways of making, which again I am lucky to see unfold. For the students of each class, because what we are doing is making, I think the prospect can be scary, which is a really wonderful thing.

Read more about faculty members newly named full professors.