Joan Nelson

As a critic once wrote about the landscapes of Joan Nelson: “There is, in short, nothing natural about these exquisitely fabricated nature scenes.” Nelson’s paradoxical twining of the natural and the artificial is in keeping with an established tradition of landscape painting and photography that includes, among others, the Hudson River School, photographer Carleton Watkins, and German Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich. In her thickly painted panels, Nelson tames the wilderness, presenting pristine, perfect views suggestive of a longing for, and remoteness from, the natural world.