Levi Nelson
Bio: Levi Nelson is an Indigenous artist from British Columbia, Canada, currently residing in New York. His chosen medium is oil paint and mixed media work on canvas which can best be described as Contemporary First Nations Art. Nelson received his BFA from Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver, Canada, and was awarded the 2021 John C. Kerr Chancellor Emeritus Award for Excellence in the Visual Arts. His work can be found in the Permanent Collection of the Audain Art Museum Whistler, the UBC & VGH Permanent Collection, and in numerous prominent private collections across Canada and the USA.
www.levinelson.ca
Instagram: @levi.nelson.artiste
Thesis Exhibition
Artist Statement: What does it mean to be put back together? My Great Aunt, Dr. Lorna Williams, a champion of Indigenous language revitalization once said that “we are trying to put back together a mirror that has shattered into a million pieces.” I thought about this statement a lot while creating my Sliced Series. Through my work I am exploring and investigating new Indigenous identities in the aftermath of surviving what could be seen as the end of the world for my people since first contact. My blood memory remembers who I am as Indigenous to the land and yet my feet walk a Western path, my mind thinks, and I speak fluently in English. I am interested in fusing the European tradition of oil painting with an understanding of my own traditions as an Indigenous artist. Through this window I can explore future possibilities and open worlds into the imagination of what it means to be an artist embodying an identity that has been interrupted, influenced, shattered, and then put back together from both sides; depicted through geometric abstraction á la Pacific Northwest Form Line, Coast Salish Style, and Photo/surrealism, while keeping modern art, particularly the New York School of painting in high contemplation. After all Barnett Newman did say that, “American Indian Art of the Pacific Northwest will one day be understood as the precursor for American abstraction.”
L to R: Back to the Future (20" x 16", Oil on canvas, 2023); Red (60" x 84", Oil on canvas, 2023); Blue (60" x 80", Oil on canvas, 2023); Trickster with Soft Ovoid (28" x 32", Oil on canvas, 2023)
First Year Exhibition
Trickster (57" x 52", Oil on canvas, 2022)
