Run For Your Life

GUY NELSON

DECEMBER 1 – DECEMBER 17, 2017
OPENING RECEPTION FRIDAY, DECEMBER 1, 6–9 PM

“You’re going to have things to repent, boy,” Mr. John had told Nick. “That’s one of the best things there is. You can always decide whether to repent them or not. But the thing is to have them.” 
― Ernest Hemingway, “Daughters and Sons”

Guy Nelson is a Midwesterner, who grew up surrounded by nature. For this reason, he doesn’t romanticize the natural world as a place of transcendence, but sees it as a familiar environment that functions as a kind of Rorschach test; the longer you stare and wonder, the more your mind makes of the twisting branches in the long shadows of a late fall day.

From this close attention, Nelson has created a world of blurred demons and shadowy creatures, myths that emanate from the mouths of old hunters, whether to scare children or just to keep their minds busy while waiting in the brush. Myths in his work speak to a greater truth of the natural world; it is a place both unsentimental and mysterious, where life and death pass with very little care for human context. There is a grim undertone to Nelson’s oft-repeated motifs that, like their subject, tantalizingly suggest meaning before disappearing through the trees like a morning’s mist.

Guy Nelson was born in Fargo, ND, and resides in Maplewood, NJ. He earned his MFA with a concentration in Integrated Practices from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY, in 2016. His work has been included at Metropolitan Structures with Java Projects, Brooklyn, NY; Peninsula Art Space, Brooklyn, NY; Show Room, Brooklyn, NY; 1708 Gallery, Richmond, VA; The Royal, Brooklyn, NY; Heskin Contemporary, NY, NY; Small Black Door, Queens, NY; Parallel Art Space, Queens, NY; UICA, Grand Rapids, MI; SooVac, Minneapolis, MN; NDMOA, Grand Forks, ND. Nelson was a curator in the SPRING/BREAK Art Show 2015.