Nancy Friese brought deep reserves of art history and broad experience as a printmaker to her collaboration at Tamarind. Her work as a painter and printmaker is informed by the experience of working in plein-air, and she holds steadfastly to the practice of experiencing the landscape firsthand. For her collaboration at Tamarind, she prepared an aluminum plate in advance, bringing a fully drawn landscape of the eastern seaboard where she lives. With this plate as a starting place, she created a second plate working outdoors in the bosque along the Rio Grande. With the two contrasting views, she and the printers set to work to develop a palette of inks that could be used in both prints. In this way, the delicate colors of the shared palette link the two landscapes together.

Friese received her MFA in Printmaking from Yale University, and is on faculty at Rhode Island School of Design. Her work is represented in museum collections including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Hammer Museum UCLA, the Spencer Museum of Art, and the Portland Art Museum. She is represented by Cade Tompkins Projects, in Providence, Rhode Island.