ARDINE NELSON

Artist Statement
This body of work represents my formal observations of ceilings. The buildings are older structures with layers of paint and generations of changing electric, water, walls, and ceiling finishes. The images are both recognition of significant form and exercises in formal design. At first broad form is evident but closer inspection reveals multiple subtle changes in surface texture, color and tone and spatial relationships. Gravity pulls everything toward the viewer.
In the United States and around the world, the revision of history, the repurposing of our buildings and people abandoned before their time is of great interest to me. As buildings are repurposed or raised and interiors dismantled, previous revisions become apparent through the multiple layers of paint and wall materials and through the various installations of lighting, electric and HVAC. Structure details once thought quite beautiful have been disguised by more modern surfaces and finishes – what does it matter what is left behind or lost as long as the new finish covers it over. This attitude is pervasive in many aspects of our daily lives.
My aesthetic influences are drawn from all of the history of photography and painting, but for this particular body of work painters and photographers from O’Keeffe, Diebenkorn, Johns to Richter, and Weston, Evans, White, Sommer to Rankaitis and Divola.