Foundation for Contemporary Arts

Dona Nelson

Lives in Lansdale, PA

Born 1947 Grand Island, NE

Painter, Teacher

I have no over-riding ideology about Painting. I don't know how it relates to culture, because I can't see paintings in photographs. I am a woman, but I don't know how that fact impacts my studio practice. I think even mild, general, ideas about gender identity and other aspects of "identity" are inhibiting, indeed hostile, to artistic exploration. What my paintings are, in relation to who I am, remains a mystery to me.

My paintings do not serve words, even my own words.

In paintings, my own, and others, I am interested in imagination coupled with a quality of facticity.

I start my two sided paintings by stretching one side and working on it for a while, and then reversing the canvas on the stretcher and working on the other side for a while, and I work back and forth that way, until I feel that there is a front side of the painting and a back side. From then on, the front is always the front of the painting and the back is always the back of the painting, but I often continue to work back and forth from one side to another. I never try to "improve" one side of the painting independently of the other. I do not consider these works to be deconstructions of the form, Painting, or sculptures, though one can walk around them. The sides of the paintings are often very different from each other, and that interests me - the way in which two very different visual and physical manifestations can be inseparable from, and, indeed, create each other.

1968 B.F.A., The Ohio State University

1967 Whitney Museum Independent Study Program

Professor of Painting and Drawing, Tyler School of Art, Temple University

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2010 VOLTA NY, New York, NY

2008 in situ: paintings 1973-present, Thomas Erben Gallery, New York, NY

2006 Brain Stain, Thomas Erben Gallery, New York, NY

2003 Tactile Image, Cheim and Read Gallery, New York, NY

2001 Stations of the Subway, Cheim and Read Gallery, New York, NY

2000 Stations of the Subway, Octopuses and Arrangements, Weatherspoon Art Gallery, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, NC

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2010 40, Texas Gallery, Houston, TX

2010 Pastorale, 80WSE Gallery, New York University, New York, NY

SELECTED GRANTS, HONORS AND AWARDS

2000 Tesuque Foundation Grant

1994 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship

1987 N.E.A. Painting Grant

1971 Theodoran Purchase Award, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum