Person of Interest: Nonamey

Playing on an audience’s nostalgia can feel like a trick, but when Nonamey does it, it’s an invitation. Their pieces reference real objects, but Nonamey’s graphic, stylized aesthetic isn’t trompe-l’œil—instead of merely tricking the eye, they excite it, with artworks that feel joyous and genuine. The Portland-based artist creates ultra-vibrant sculptures, wearables, and installations in cardboard, acrylic paint, and spray paint. They use those materials to create an “enveloped environment,” as in their recent show, Teen Dream, an immersive imagining of a teenager’s bedroom in the ’90s. 

They also translate that aesthetic into wearable art. Nonamey is Ojibwe and trans-nonbinary and uses both he and they pronouns. Those identities shine in their fashions, like cartoon-ized suit jackets and ribbon skirts, to help them find “moments when I can embody the person that I want to be through clothing.” And the wearables aren’t just for them: This summer, for The Softies’ first new album in 24 years, they created outfits with matching instruments for the pop duo.

While Nonamey’s work often nods to the past, it also feels effortlessly contemporary. Most recently, their tentacled, grayscale “shipwreck” installation (co-created with Clyde Petersen) brought a wood-paneled oceanic scene to the Pacific Science Center for Bumbershoot. The result revealed a strength of Nonamey’s style. It’s translatable—and straight-up charming—in damn near any situation, from music videos and Instagram reels to white box galleries and large-scale outdoor installs.

We chatted with Nonamey about twists on reality, the allure of the ’90s, and his upbringing in rural New Mexico.

This is probably a really obvious starting question, but I think our readers would love to hear the story behind your name!

Sure! I was born Noname Rose Crowe. That was the first name on the first document from the day I was born. My mother was a teenage runaway, and she didn’t select a name for me off the bat. I enjoy that anonymity. I’ve been through many iterations of names throughout my life. I came out as trans-nonbinary, and Lukas is my name today, outside of my working name. When I selected my working name, it seemed most appropriate to choose my initial name as a start for my solo art career.

It’s interesting to hear that your artistic name is a callback to your birth story because your style often evokes a strong sense of childhood and teenage nostalgia. It’s embedded in the media you’re using—cardboard, acrylic, hot glue—and also in your overall aesthetic. It’s intentionally and beautifully lo-fi, like stepping into a comic strip. What inspires you to evoke a sense of nostalgia in your work?

It’s an interest in people. I’m fascinated by what others hold in their memory. In Teen Dream, my most recent full-room installation at Brassworks Gallery in Portland, I had so many interactions with people who were teenagers in the ’90s. They said, “I had that album! I had that poster! I had that lunchbox!” I was born in the ’90s. I experienced that generational pause right before the internet became accessible, that time when you could bang a television and it might actually work better. It was a different world, and I appreciate the aesthetics of that kind of memory hold. 

Your visual language is so bold, but your installations also feel like poetic world-building—you create objects like video games, spray paint cans, easels, and old records. When I look at your installation work, I understand who lives in that space, but I also come to understand who I am in that space. Would you say that that’s a goal? 

I truly have no idea how a person is going to interact with my piece, and that’s exciting to me. I create suggestions, like posters and zines, but I don’t know what people are going to be glued to in my installation. I hope to create an enveloped environment—a feeling of being in a familiar space, yet different. Like “Hmm, that looks like an easel, yet it looks also like a two-dimensional drawing. That looks like a dresser, but it’s also very flat, and the drawers don’t open.” I like to create that play on reality.

For your Bumbershoot installation, The Mess We Have Made, you collaborated with Torrey Pines creator Clyde Petersen. What feels important to share about that work? How did your vision emerge?

It was an opportunity to work with Clyde Petersen, one of my favorite cardboard artists. I got on a Zoom call with Clyde, and we just were shooting some ideas back and forth. A shipwreck seemed obvious to both of us. I don’t know why, but that’s the way art collaboration works. Sometimes I don’t question it! It was kind of like jazz. Clyde constructed the wooden panels, delivered them to me, and I painted them. It was this nice poetic exchange, and we talked to each other every day. It was a really lovely collaboration.

What was the inspiration behind the installation title?

It’s based on a lyric from a song by Clyde’s music project, Your Heart Breaks, called “The Rats.” Go check it out! It’s awesome.

Music plays a big role in your artwork! In your Teen Dream installation in Portland, you created cardboard band posters to decorate an imagined bedroom. I was struck by how you created artworks within artworks, and how that deepened the authenticity of the space. You also make cardboard guitars and art for musicians, like pieces for a Whisper Hiss music video and recent wearable art for the Softies. Why does it feel important to bring music into your practice so heavily?

It’s not necessarily intentional. It just happens! I love music, and sometimes I need music as an initiator. It might be a soundtrack I’m listening to, or something on the Billboard charts. For example, I was listening to Iggy Pop, and that inspired me to create a New York subway car from the ’70s.

That’s funny—my next question was whether any specific musicians have helped shape your aesthetic. Do any others come to mind?

I would be probably doing a disservice to many musicians by forgetting names, but just this week, I’ve been listening to a lot of Your Heart Breaks and Kimya Dawson, which really spoke to the [Bumbershoot installation] I created. 

Your work also feels grounded in the Pacific Northwest, e.g., your collab with Clyde Petersen, your recent work for The Softies, and your sculpture of the Portland writer Katherine Dunn’s book Geek Love. But you actually spent your formative years in New Mexico. How did that landscape impact your art?

I was born in Wisconsin, outside of the Bad River Reservation, and grew up in very rural northern New Mexico. I noticed a quality of objects left behind by people—train cars out in the desert, or abandoned houses—that I found so fascinating. Similarly, when I came to Portland, there were objects left by people, like graffiti, street art, and pieces of art nailed to lamp posts. I was really interested in Portland’s art scene when I moved here—it just felt comfortable.

I’m curious about how you navigate and share aspects of your identity through wearable art, like the ribbon skirt that you created for National Ribbon Skirt Day earlier this year and the Backstage at the Drag Show installation you created for the 2023 Other Art Fair. How did you begin bringing wearables into your work? Where do you see that practice headed?

I’ve been making paper clothes and using recycled clothing for the better part of a decade now, and it finally feels like I’m able to express myself through clothing. At first, clothing was an introduction to showing my masculine side by making suits and more masculine cuts. Then, as I continued making these pieces, it felt appropriate to make a ribbon skirt, which is a feminine cut, but I wore it with a suit jacket. There are moments when I can embody the person that I want to be through clothing, even if I have moments of doubt. I can make the clothing of a person I want to emulate, which is ultimately me!

Nonamey’s work will be on display at Photosynthesis in Olympia as part of the city’s Fall Arts Walk October 4–5.