Artist Statement:
It was the single, thin blue line which gave me a way in to the recent work. The line was the closest approximation I could find to the way I think about prayer. It’s not a particularly bold act to seek silence in noise or to grab for a line when sinking. It’s about desperation or survival.
The folded and damaged surface is a stand-in for inner states of ongoing grief, anger, and frustration. The canvas is literally depressed into valleys and folds, an auto accident in a wild place. The image seems as though it is being clawed off of the surface of the frame, but it’s frozen, and all of the decay, rather than being the physical breaking down of the image, serves to reinforce its shape. What appears to be damage is strange armor. The perceived weakness is strength.
The addition of the tree-like elements came to me as a kind of dream where a stretcher frame is either cut from a tree or is returning to its original state. It was a lie built around the truth of the materials. It had a fairy-tale quality to it.
To borrow the language of Emily Dickinson. It was a way of telling a truth about an inner state at a slant.
Bio:
Levi S. Nelson is a painter who studied at the Rocky Mountain College of Art. In addition to his B.A. in Illustration, he spent several years as a textile designer. His work centers around themes of damage, fragility, and loss. He has shown work in various spaces throughout Denver and was selected to participate in a juried show in California last year. Levi is from Lander, Wyoming, has lived in Denver, and currently resides in Salem, MA.