Transitory States
Ardine Nelson
GALLERY III
Ardine Nelson, Transitory States 1773, 2022, photography, pigmented Inkjet print, 40 x 32 inches.
January 11 – February 9, 2025
Opening reception: Saturday, January 11, from 6–8pm
A.I.R. Gallery is pleased to announce Transitory States, an exhibition of photographic works by A.I.R. Alum Artist Ardine Nelson, exploring various plant materials as they age past what is considered their traditional peak. This is Nelson’s first solo exhibition in New York City.
Nelson uses the technique of macro photography to reveal details in plant material normally too minute to perceive with the human eye. Printed at a scale of 32 by 40 inches, individual plants become entire worlds. When seen from a distance, the large-scale images have a strong graphic presence, inviting the viewer to come closer. Further inspection reveals crisp details we don’t usually see, as the plants transform into a new landscape that the viewer can visually walk through. Colors fade to various degrees across the surface of the blooms, a testament to the plant’s maturation from youth to late adulthood. Typically, macro photography is thought to have a relatively limited area of sharp focus. But Nelson employs the technique of focus stacking, layering up to sixty frames with slightly different focus points to build astoundingly sharp images.
The works in Transitory States reflect Nelson’s embrace of the aging process and mature appreciation for all of life’s stages. She draws on the Japanese concept of Wabi-sabi—a worldview centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection—as an apt description for the appearance of plant material as it ages, ever changing as it fades, wrinkles, and loses its scent. A different reverence emerges, one that respects the well-lived life.
Ardine Nelson is based in Columbus, OH, where she retired from the Department of Art, The Ohio State University, after over forty years of teaching. She earned her MFA degree from the University of Iowa. Over the years, Nelson has most often explored work involving various approaches to landscape and she received the John Simon Guggenheim Photography Fellowship in 2008–09 for Green Spaces: Small Garden Communities of Dresden, Germany. She has exhibited nationally and internationally. Her work resides in more than twenty-five public collections. www.ardinenelson.com
View Ardine Nelson’s page here.
View the Press Release here.