JOAN NELSON

Posted on 2025-01-20

For over four decades, Joan Nelson has created majestic and potent visions of the natural world, playfully subverting the long-standing art historical genre of landscape painting. This March, Herald St presents an exhibition of new works made by the artist in her studio nestled amongst the Catskill Mountains in Stamford,
New York.

In her newest works, produced for her second solo exhibition at Herald St, Nelson remains interested in geological phenomena: depicting the sky, clouds, caves, sunsets, mountains, valleys, and rivers. Drawing from both observed reality and imagination, Nelson’s meticulously rendered compositions depict a world seemingly untouched by human life. ‘I don’t want a human presence, or even an animal presence,’ Nelson previously observed. ‘Because then the painting has a specific focal point, and it’s about that focal point.’ Indeed, while this allows her paintings a universality to project one’s own experiences and memories, Nelson’s paintings also imagine a world pre-, or perhaps post-, human civilisation. ‘I think of a world in which humans don’t exist, and I’m a little gleeful about it,’ she once conceded.

Opposite – Untitled, 2024

Exhibition runs through to April 26th, 2025

Herald St
2 Herald St
E2 6JT London
England

www.heraldst.com

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WHERE EARTH MEETS SKY

Posted on 2025-01-13

Where Earth Meets Sky, a group exhibition of contemporary painting that reimagines the landscape as a dynamic space shaped by culture, memory, and perception. Featuring the works of 26 artists on the ground and first floor of the Neubau at Bergson Kunstkraftwerk, the exhibition challenges traditional views of the landscape, not as a static, natural entity, but as a constantly evolving concept. Each artist brings a unique, abstract approach to the theme of “landscape,” pushing the boundaries of representation and distilling the natural world into new visual languages. The landscape is not simply depicted – it becomes a vehicle for exploring our environment’s psychological, emotional, and political dimensions. Through layers of texture, color, and form, the artists shift our focus from the physical landscape to its symbolic meanings – revealing how our perception of nature is shaped by history, memory, and collective identity.

Opposite – Maria Joannou, August Moon

Exhibition runs through to August 3rd, 2025

KÖNIG GALERIE
Am Bergson Kunstkraftwerk 2
81245 Munich
Germany

www.koeniggalerie.com

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