Born to a father, a political refugee, imprisoned for his nationality, shot through the chest, saved by a stranger who subsequently bore me. As an infant, homeless, perplexed by the thud of bombs exploding. At puberty, found that I was closest to foreigners, refugees and subversives. Married someone from a different continent, who had suffered at the hands of bigots. Taunted as an enemy alien, arrested for possession of recorded music, separated by authorities from my family, crossing borders illicitly, mounted police trampling me underfoot. My relatives persecuted by the secret police simply because of their relationship to me, and dying at the hands of the regime. Is it any wonder that I discovered release in an engagement with art and pure aesthetics. Is it any wonder that I find myself creating works concerned with politics and social issues.

For more than 30 years I’ve considered myself a weaver. Weaving requires structure, order and balance interlaced with texture and color.

In the last few years I’ve expanded my artistry to include collage, mixed media and assemblage, incorporating weaving into the collage work. Collage and assemblage represent the unknown to me. That is to say, I don’t necessarily know what the piece will look like when I start. which is in contrast to weaving where I have to know what the end result will be before I start.

Creating collage and assemblage offers me the opportunity to explore the not so visible parts of life, the subtle messages woven into and between the unsaid and to express myself in new and creative ways.

Weaving and collage are very different and that is what’s fun about each of the processes.

This year I'm showing two new series I've been working on - a group of black and white prints on wood from our beautiful coastline, and a new set of film prints on anodized aluminum, shot in Mexico. I continue to explore the boundaries of photography as a painterly medium, and the different materials I use to print and present my images on as a way to enhance their overall message and feel. There will also be some prints on paper and canvas.

My work is a reflection of the time in which I am living. History, geography and folklore gathered in my travels are motivating factors. The human condition is described throughout my work. I see artistic value in the abandoned and beauty in the broken whether people or objects. I consciously use cast away items to invent the time and tone in each piece. A variety of artistic means are the vehicle that allows the work to reflect my vision. I think of my work in literary terms as visual poetry. Each piece is self-contained. My intentions are both emotive and personal.

"Our job is to record each in his own way, this world of light and shadow and time that will never come again exactly as it is today."

I'm interested in combining different materials and elements to create or change an image, to elevate it or diminish its glow and power. In this work, I am exploring the myth of celebrity and beauty, of what is classic or sacred, I use photographs by Annie Leibovitz, classic paintings by Da Vinci or Lautrec, cut out pages of W or Vanity Fair magazines, old record covers, or poetry books as my essential elements of expression. I see their beauty and power, and I want to reinterpret, to enhance, or metamorphosize these powerful images.

As a long-time practicing graphic designer, I have spent many years working with images and contemplating structures of composition with image and typography. The need to satisfy my creative side is expressed through photography and the images that I am both drawn to as a viewer as well as a maker tend to be the antithesis of the crisp, grid bound, modernist typographic, graphic design that I have spent many years making. In recent years, I have added linoleum block printing and bookmaking to my repetoires - mostly as a medium for extending my photography but also as straight printmaking.

Through my lens, as I travel the world, I strive to share with my viewers a photographic glimpse of its beauty and variations of cultures and traditions. 

Greg Nelson Art depicts ethereal California landscapes and intimate figures through multi-media paintings with a romantic vision of nature and a classical treatment of form. View my website at http://www.gregnelsonart.com