john randal l ne lson Delicately Interconnected
Cover: Be Charmed (detail) mixed media 48" x 36" $7,400 (Full image on back cover.)
john randall ne ls on Delicately Interconnected
January 17 – February 27, 2022 Artist’s Reception
First Thursdays Art Walk February 3, 6-9 PM
SGFA SUE GREENWOOD FINE ART 330 north coast hwy laguna beach, ca 92651 949.494.0669 suegreenwoodfineart.com
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john randall ne ls on
I
n 2002, John Randall Nelson produced one
hundred paintings for his exhibition 100 Works. Over the past two decades he has patiently honed his style and expanded his visual vocabulary, all the while moving toward more distilled solutions. In retrospect, the interesting thing about Nelson’s approach is how he has maintained a singular flexible idiom.
O
ne consequence of Nelson’s persistence has been a shift in the focus of his work, from narratives to enigmatic associations. The visual storyteller has evolved into an eclectic collector of visual associations and psychological dislocations. The work’s strength lies in the terrain between the narrative and the abstract, between what is immediately accessible and what remains obscure.
A
nd so it is with Nelson’s intuitively generated imagery, in the painting No True North, you recognize the pointy-hatted Gnome traversing a field of polkadots, but you don’t know why, let lone what it signifies. It’s the ambiguity between the flash of recognition and the mystery of meaning that makes the work so intriguing.
T
he painting 3 Things Delicately
Interconnected is a simple yet compelling diptych with a toy top and a spiraling doodle on a rich red ground in which parts of words and phrases appear almost subliminally. Does the crown stand for wealth and power or is it an ironic symbol of childish delusions of grandeur? How does it relate to the top, a child’s toy with magical gyroscopic powers? The questions – asked but not answered – reverberate.
N
elson’s vocabulary is a decidedly idiosyncratic slant on the human figure and a unique psychological take on human nature. I read many of his works as invented portraits. Though not wholly human, the beings in Nelson’s artwork, like the terrors of childhood, have less to do with monsters than the shifting role of the subconscious self. Part animal and part human, part nature and part culture, they are emblematic, archetypal. Each lives its own life, each tells its own story, each poses its own questions. In the end, there are more questions than there are answers–more mystery than reality. - Marta Baker, Arts Journal
No True North Mixed media 48" x 48" $7,400
She Can’t Go Back Mixed media 48" x 48" $7,400
Drenched Mixed media on panel 48" x 36" $5,900
Magically Sparse Mixed media 36" x 48" $5,900
Intergalactic Mixed media 48" x 60" $8,500
Cuernavaca Mixed media 36" x 48" $5,900
3 Things Delicately Interconnected Mixed media 72" x 96" $15,000
Red Poppies Mixed media on panel 72" x 48" $10,000
Good and Road Mixed media on panel 48" x 36" $5,900
Be Okay Mixed media on panel 48" x 36" $5,900
Escape #9 Mixed media 38" x 48" $5,900
A Serene Balance Mixed media 36" x 48" $5,900
Eros Foamflower Mixed media 36" x 48" $5,900
Small But Mighty Mixed media 36" x 48" $5,900
Naturally Mixed media 36" x 48" $5,900
“Time tests a sign’s ability to inscribe itself into memory. Long before the appearance of writing, figurative and nonfigurative images were used in pictorial systems of communication. My work exists in a liminal zone, a shifting space where some things morph into other things. Fragments of signs and ciphers float like music notes, or pirouette into ambiguity. Often pictographic, my paintings and sculptures reference the work of American folk art and the Pattern and Decoration movement of the 1970s and ’80s. “The visual vocabulary is also subtle with faint traces of text and decorous patterns; letters, words and graphics appear like cryptic messages or the faded recollections of memory.” - John Randall Nelson
Be Charmed mixed media 48" x 36" $7,400
SGFA SUE GREENWOOD FINE ART 330 north coast hwy laguna beach, ca 92651 949.494.0669 suegreenwoodfineart.com
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artsy.net/sue-greenwood-fine-art