Dan Nelson

OPENING/MEET THE ARTIST Saturday 27 April, 11am – 5pm ALL WELCOME

MEET THE ARTIST Saturday 18 May 11am – 2pm inc Artist Talk at 1pm

While working on these paintings I came across a photo of my mother standing on a beach, listening for the sea in a shell. 

I laughed, because her desire to connect with the sea was a bit like mine. In my notebook I had recently scrawled: a painting is an artifact, a thing I have inhabited, now removed from its source but containing its voice, its music – a shell washed up on your shore. 

These works explore the idea that abstract painting, which by stepping away from representational elements, is freed to describe more than the visual experience. The materiality of paint, fluid brushstroke and emotive use of colour are an attempt to describe the multi-sensate experience of the sea – texture, light, sound, touch, smell. 

I think they are the most shamelessly romantic paintings I have made to date. I am not sure if they are love songs to the sea or from it, but I hope they connect us.

This work was made and is being exhibited in Muloobinba. The name means ‘place of sea fern’, which attests to the sustenance the sea provided to the traditional owners, and to their cultural knowledge and ingenuity. I acknowledge that this is the traditional land of the Awabakal and Worimi peoples, and was never ceded. I pay my respects to past, present and future Elders.

I would like to thank Peter Lankas for his kind and thoughtful mentorship, and acknowledge the support received from my friends and studio co-habitors. I sincerely thank my dear partner and family who ride the dumpers with me. 

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
Dan Nelson holds a Bachelor of Visual Arts from the University of Newcastle. She has had four solo exhibitions, including Pass (2020), Another Skin (2018), Feeling the Moon (2016) and Formations (2015). She has participated in curated exhibitions at the University of Newcastle Galleries, Reimagining the Canon (2019) and Erasure (2019), at Newcastle Art Space, Summer Salt (2023), and The Creator Incubator, Counteractions (2024). In early 2024, her work was awarded Highly Commended in the Milburn Landscape Art Prize for Landscape. Her work is represented in the University of Newcastle Collection and in many private collections. She is currently a studio artist resident at Newcastle Art Space.