Oona Nelson
Studio Grant holder in Stockholm 2 September 2021 – 19 November 2022
Oona Nelson is an artist who lives and works in San Francisco Bay Area, Calefornia, USA. Her parents are artists and I grew up around creative people so a well worn path was laid out for her early on. She has a Bachelors Degree in Film from the San Francisco Art Institute, and a Masters Degree in Time Arts from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has been in some 50 plus group and solo shows. Last year she was included in shows in San Francisco, Los Angles, and Delft, The Netherlands and currently working on building up a larger body of work for a larger exhibition or series of exhibitions.
Photo: Oona Nelson
Since 2014, her practice has focused on exploring and critiquing aspects of consumption, abundance, and decay. Within her work, she blends the influence of art history, the contemporary cult of convenience and abundance, along with the corresponding environmental threats and distorted value systems. She’s trying to balance the grotesque and the beautiful. She often work with photography and Photoshop and the end result being original photographic-based assemblages (collage paintings) or digital prints. She also host gatherings that are performative in nature: interactive gestures with champagne towers, drinks on fire, live insect centerpieces, food chandeliers, etc. She’s constantly dragging stuff around and asking for favors and spending a lot of time searching for props, scouting locations, lugging grocery bags, building elaborate sets, burning paintings, working with rotting food, sewing costumes, photographing dogs, mixing gallons of fake blood, collaborating with friends, and cleaning up huge messes.