Nistal Prem de Boer was born in Amsterdam and immigrated to Canada after finishing his degree in Architecture and Engineering at the Technical University of Delft, the Netherlands. In Montreal he worked at several architectural offices. In 1976 he moved to Canada Creek, Nova Scotia, where he started working as an independent architect. His work focused on solar houses. He designed and built houses and homesteads, self sufficient to a large degree, using appropriate technology and many innovative designs and processes. Typically he has been working in rural settings with large owner involvement in the design and building. Although most residences/homesteads were very low cost, beauty and harmony have been of the highest priority. For Nistal the actual building represents only a part of an environment. The landscape has been integrated in all his architectural work. In 1988 he moved to Italy and with his partner Nistal restored the ruins of an old watermill in Northern Italy "The Molino di Fondo". Here in the Agonia Valley, he created a sculptural hand- crafted project that included a music auditorium for concerts and groups, a large residence and four smaller apartments. On the grounds landscape sculptures were realized: Zen Garden, Medicine Wheel and a sculptural arrangement of granite elements called 'Altar of Love'. Sculpture has presented itself all his life. Nistal's architecture and landscape design can certainly be called sculptural. His way of working has been more that of a craftsman/artist than of a designer. Many of Nistal's sculptures in terra cotta have been integrated in the buildings he created. In 1999 Nistal made Nova Scotia, Canada his principal residence once again. Retiring mostly from architecture, his life long love affair with sculpture changed into his professional ambition. From this moment forth many sculptures in bronze have seen the light.

I am intrigued about how to express the ephemeral, the fleeting and transitory in the permanent, lasting medium of bronze: the timeless bronze represents to me the never changing moment we live in, the Power of Now: Always experienced in different ways, fresh again and again. The human form is my greatest inspiration, certainly its unspeakable beauty, but very much also, its ability to change and to show the processes of transformation. I love playing with our ability to consciously or subconsciously read all these expressions. I work mostly from life models, however I am not concerned about the anatomical correctness. My concern is the expression, the feelings generated by the work. Death and birth do not just happen at the end and the beginning of life, it happens every moment, it is part of growth, of change, expressed moment to moment. My little granddaughter is not the new born baby she was just one year ago, that baby is gone and a totally new one year old is celebrating her birthday. I have drawn upon stories of transformation and metamorphosis found in Zen stories, Greek myths, in legends of Hindu Gods and Goddesses, in Sufi tales and poems, in Tantra. All these stories are about change and mutation, growth and enlightenment. Much of my sculpture attempts to capture these moments of metamorphoses in the permanent form of bronze. To me, they are an expression of the ultimate accident, the dew drop merging with the ocean. A finger pointing to the moon.

Creation of sculptures in clay, molds, waxes, ceramic shells, bronze casts and finished bronzes Common Uncommon Art, yearly participant, Wolfville, Nova Scotia Nydeck Bruecke, Bern, Switserland, 150th Anniversary Cipolla, Centro d' Ompio, Petenasco, Italy Altar of Love, Zen Garden, Medicine Wheel, Molino di Fondo, Ameno, Italy Caracol, Puerta Vieho, Costa Rica Design for 'Halifax Explosion Monument', for Keith Graham Fountain, Lachine, Quebec