Artist Statement:
The church banner is an object with connections to Roman military flags once carried to war. A military symbol of power became church processional banners, which have become fading wall decor bearing the word “peace” in gold script font accompanied by a dove. It’s an overlooked decorative object which proclaims one thing while carrying a history of violent domination. A surface can communicate one thing while the presentation it takes can communicate something else. Where one person finds comfort, another can see a threat.
My intent for reshaping the church banner was to push the object to question contradictions, to force it into unpredictable, grotesque territory. What happens when a commonplace decoration is distorted to the point it becomes mysterious again?
The crumpled canvas evokes eroding industrial materials or car accidents but is countered by decorative fabrics we associate with comfort, a warm table in a grandmother’s home. In seeking to connect the work to my own history, much of the fabric incorporated in these works were shipped from my hometown in Wyoming by my mother. Some of the raw material is from frankensteined fragments of discarded church banners. The images employed in holy spaces communicate a permissible range of human experience, which in turn communicates who is welcome in these spaces. Can a prayer ache like bent metal?
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 Colorado, Massachusetts, and was selected to participate in a juried show in California. Levi is from Lander, Wyoming, has lived in Denver, and currently resides in Salem, MA.