Nelson United Kingdom
Nelson (she/her) is a contemporary conceptual artist based in London and currently studying for an MFA at the Royal College of Art.
At the core of Nelson’s practice is storytelling and the murkiness of the “truth” of one’s recollections. She considers her work an ongoing labour of ascesis, or self-discipline, an elaboration of the self by the self. Her practice embodies radical vulnerability through a combination of object, text and film, but always with the visible presence of the artist’s hand at work as a performative enactment of her subjectivity. Nelson’s work, therefore, often plays with the mess, leakage, and imperfections innate in the human experience. She is interested in the abject and often mixes uncomfortable visual metaphors with dark humour, believing that this will make the work resonate longer with the viewer.
Nelson considers her work part of the auto-ethnographic and auto-theoretical traditions - she uses episodes from her own story as the source of her work, believing it will yield insights about broader contemporary culture. She invites the audience to use the visual interpretations of her experiences as a springboard to explore their own.
Nelson’s work has been exhibited internationally, including a 2023 screening of her short film “He.., I…” at a Tate Late event at Tate Modern, the broadcasting of a sound piece on “Montez Press Radio”, and inclusion in physical and digital exhibitions held by “Woman Made Gallery” in Chicago. Nelson has work in the “Procreate Project Archive” and won the Batsford Prize Fine Art Category in 2022.
Artwork
Stultitia (series), Series of foam-mounted photographic prints, 2022
The Ties that Bind, Mixed media, primarily hand and machine-sewn textiles, 2023
And her tears washed away his sins, Hand-embroidered whitework on printed linen, 2023
Every moment is..., 57 bricks of laser-engraved beech wood stacked in varying configurations, 2023
In my mother's dimple, Film, 2023