A nexus is a central link or connection. If you happen to be at the nexus of something, you are right smack in the middle of it. In this work, two figures, or groups of figures, are depicted in contrasting styles. The compositions are pairings of Pop Culture icons that would not normally be considered in the same frame. The viewer is invited to enter the intersection between the figures to interpret, and reinterpret, the subject of the painting. In other words, the viewer is invited into the nexus to explore the link between the figures. Sometimes what’s going on is intense, however, the playful expression of the paintings empower further examination of challenging subjects.
Often the paintings are funny but I am not making fun of anything. These are my favorite images, many dating back to my formative, art-starved years in central Florida. They are images from the Sunday Funnies in the Orlando Sentinel, where the words got in my way as an inordinately visual boy, and Saturday matinees at the Colony Theater, where nothing got in the way of the big screen. Many of these images are from a place where I began to gather my internal visual database, the sweaty south, two generations ago, where the closest thing to a museum was Disney World, which assumed the mantle of local cultural epicenter from Gatorland, who ran help wanted ads in the Orlando Sentinel for Alligator Wrestler, No Experience Necessary. I still love Gatorland.
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
New York State of Mind, Cavalier Galleries, Online exhibition, 2020
Nexus, Cavalier Ebanks Gallery, Solo Exhibition, Greenwich, ct 2019
Summer Group Show, Cavalier Galleries, Greenwich, CT,2019
Art new york, Cavalier Galleries, New york, Ny 2019
Annual online Group Exhibition, Cavalier Galleries, 2019
Mixed Messages, Cavalier Gallery, Solo Exhibition, New York, NY 2018
RE:formation, Gallery Madison Park, New York, NY 2018
Artists of the Premier Collection, Gordon Fine Arts Gallery, Stamford, CT 2017
Time and Place, The Hammond Museum, North Salem, NY 2015
EDUCATION
School of Visual Arts, New York City, MFA Computer Art, 1993
University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, BS Interdisciplinary Studies, 1984
Contact
William Nelson
bill@williamnelsonstudio.com
917.449.7080
Studio visits by appointment
Firing Circuits Studios
One Muller Ave. Norwalk, CT 06850