Terese Nielsen

Terese Nielsen (born 1966 in Aurora, Nebraska as Terese Spencer) is a former Magic: The Gathering artist that began illustrating cards during Alliances. Her early artwork is extremely expressive and recognizable easily due to her very unique use of gouache. On June 18, 2020, Nielsen's relationship with Wizards was terminated, due to her support of controversial fringe political movements and conspiracy theories.

Education and training
She received an associate degree from Rick's College in Idaho and a bachelor's degree from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California.

Career
Nielsen has done artwork for several companies and has developed a heavy following outside of Magic for her work on Star Wars "The Dark Times" packaging., Xena, and 7th Sea amongst other products. Amongst Magic players, she is known for her extreme alterations on cards — most notably Force of Will.

Artistic style
Nielsen's typical artwork style has migrated to photocopying her sketches, then water-coloring over them, and using a colored pencil to finish off the edges. She has demonstrated a strong ability to capture ethereal feminine beauty as well as illicit mood through careful palette consideration.

Nielsen remains a popular artist and arguably the strongest female Magic artist along with Rebecca Guay.

Personal life
Her ex-husband is Mirage-era artist Cliff Nielsen and her brother is Ron Spencer. She currently resides in Temple City, California with her wife Dawn and their four children. Her current passion is to show off her lighter side with a project called Angel Quest.

Termination
Terese Nielsen came under controversy starting in 2018 due to her political views. These included support for QAnon and the promulgation of trans-exclusionary radical feminist viewpoints, the former of which was only compounded in 2019 by her gift of art to the far-right YouTube channel, Edge of Wonder. During the Jumpstart preview season, Doug Beyer confirmed: "[Wizards hasn't] commissioned new art from Terese Nielsen in quite a while... The last product that will have any reprint art from her is this fall with Zendikar Rising." This was the first and only official acknowledgment of the controversy.

in Modern Horizons was her last piece for Wizards. In the 2021 reprint of the Mystery Booster set, all the cards that featured her art were removed.