Walking in Tall Grass

10 April - 18 May 2003
Central space

Over the last decade and a half Jan Nelson has moved freely between painting, photography, video, sculpture and installation. Using these different media she attempts to make palpable in her work the psychological gap between the world that we physically experience and the psychological states through which it is apprehended. Her recent paintings operate between two dramatically different modes: intimately detailed paintings of young people deeply absorbed in thought or intensely focused activities. These paintings are relatively small scale with the figures captured against brightly coloured grounds, removing them from any sense of social location or context. In distinction to these intensely inwardly focused works are large-scale enamel striped paintings whose kinetic energy evokes hard-edge abstraction as much the colours selected from this season's fashions. Nelson talks about these dramatically different visual experiences and historical references being something that are not precisely equivalent but definitely analogues to one another - different expressions of similar experiences. The exhibition will also include recent photographs that explore these themes through intimate details as well as figurative works, again using children to explore the meniscus between the interior world and physical experience. Jan Nelson lives and works in Melbourne. She has exhibited throughout Australia and is in many private and public collections including the National Gallery of Victoria and the Art Gallery of Western Australia. In 2002, Nelson's work was presented at the XXV Bienal de Sao Paulo.