VISUAL ARTS + MUSEUMS

Archway Gallery presents Happenstance, featuring paintings by Anita Nelson, one of the gallery’s newest members. The exhibition will be on view September 3 – 30, 2011.  The artist will be on hand to visit with guests during the exhibition opening reception on Saturday, September 10, 2011 from 5 – 8 p.m. at the gallery.

Happenstance represents the creating of fortuitous circumstances and Nelson’s love of anything with fur, feathers, scales, fins or shells. Generally reflected in the art is a sense of irony or a twist of fate. Each painting has a story to be told and allows the viewer to carry the story from the point of being introduced to the piece. Each painting contains its own individuality. It evolves not by a certain plan but by its own need to exist.

Nelson is inspired by the creation of each piece, where she identifies a starting point from a simple word that “speaks” to her at that time. “Choosing the word is personal,” she said. She allows that word to “change and evolve and the work tells me what it needs. If it takes ten paintings to get the right feel, I know at least I have learned something from the other nine.”

Other inspiration for Nelson can be based on looking at the small “stuff.” For instance, “finding a round rock on a stoneless beach becomes a turtle hatching from an egg that is discovered by a pheasant,” she said. “Or, a childhood memory shakes out and is translated by our adult feelings. If the thought needs to be translated by abstract strokes then it should be allowed to do so, but on the same hand if one needs to use representational images to translate that thought, the freedom to do so should be there.”

In 2004, after many years as a freelance illustrator, Nelson decided to rediscover her artistic roots and paint what she loves. Her work is more involved with whimsical images and the creation of childhood memories. She uses a range of materials in “old master” and “contemporary” approaches to create images always showing her love of animals. Oil paints, acrylics, colored pencil, ink make up the majority of the material used. Recently her primary focus is using acrylics on composite board, clay board or cold press watercolor board.

Nelson earned a B.F.A. from the Cleveland Institute of Art in Enameling with a Painting minor and Masters of Art Education from Case Western Reserve University in Ohio. She currently resides in Missouri City, Texas area with her artist-husband Mark A. Nelson, cats Zog and Zig-Zag and their arch rival Zuzu the wonder dog, where she paints in her home-based studio.

Nelson is one of the newest artists at Archway Gallery in Houston and represented by Wally Workman Gallery in Austin, Texas. Along with having several one and two person shows, her work is in many private collections and part of the University of Wisconsin Hospital Collection.

Pictured: Dog with Short Tail, By Anita Nelson.