Peter Nelson works on / with paper

Peter Nelson’s work invites the viewer into a strange, surreal world; one that is both similar yet very different to our own. LikeAlice’s journey through Wonderland, Peter’s images transport us into a poetic space that is full of wonder, unease, portent and loss. The sparse landscapes Peter creates develop out of a variety of real and imagined places and objects that are reconfigured across ambiguously flattened spaces. Devoid of horizon lines and traditional Western perspective, the objects seem to float, suspended across the surface, occupying a transient and unstable mid-ground that is in part inspired by traditional Chinese painting.

Seeped in muted grays, blues and greens, this post apocalyptic world represents Peter’s ongoing concern with melding together the external landscape of the environment with the internal landscape of our imagination. That this melding together should produce such a disturbing, unstable space points to the fraught and unresolved relationship that exists between ourselves and the environment.

In this sense, Peter’s work engages with the politics of identity, responsibility and space, utilizing the landscape to explore and open up a dialogue between the viewer and his work. Without professing any answers, Peter’s images simply and poetically raise important questions we all face today.

Shannon Field