I attended a lecture by Dona Nelson on February 9th at Manetti Shrem Museum as part of the Art Studio Visiting Artist Lecture Series. Nelson has had twelve solo exhibitions and is represented by Thomas Erben Gallery. She is also a professor of Painting and Drawing at Temple University, as well as Tyler School of Art, both located in Philadelphia.
Birdy (front) 2015 acrylic on canvas
Birdy (back) 2015 acrylic on canvas
Dona Nelson talked about her love for Barnett Newman and Jackson Pollock. She also said it took her ten-to-twelve years to shake off her "formal abstract painter" label. She believes her "mature" work starts in about 1989. She's well known for her two-sided paintings, which started by accident in 2003. She was working with a hose while being outside, where she gets a lot of energy from the Sun, and the image appeared on the other side. I've never seen someone install their paintings in a manner in which one could see the front and the back, so I was intrigued by the installation shots she included in her presentation. After looking at all of her work on her website (donanelson.com), I'm not excited by the work as it appears on the backside of the canvas, but I can also see why it would be an interesting avenue to explore. Nelson said she enjoys the strangeness of her two-sided work. "One side is like material and action, and the other side's the image."
New Paintings Installation, 2015, Thomas Erben Gallery
"Material is time. I'm very aware of it and being extravagant with it."
-Dona Nelson
Dona Nelson brought up that image in the European tradition is much more important than materiality. And to Dona, she wants to equalize the image and the material. She's a great lecturer and I really enjoyed her presentation. She ended her lecture by saying she wasn't going to make you a better person if you went to her show and that type of openness and humor is so refreshing when compared to most of the art lectures I've been to.
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