Work courtesy of DOCUMENT, Chicago, and Chapter NY.
Erin Jane Nelson
Erin Jane Nelson
Her Deepness
May 9, 2019 – August 4, 2019
In the recent debate over the “national emergency” to build part of the wall on the U.S. border with Mexico, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said that he feared today’s border security emergency could lead to Democrats using the same tactic for climate change. This was seen as especially ironic as South Florida, including Rubio’s hometown of Miami, is said to be the most vulnerable region in the country based on the effects of rising sea levels.
Atlanta-based Erin Jane Nelson has been traveling around the American Southeast to barrier islands and coastal wetlands that are rapidly eroding and disappearing. Where there once was a vanishing point, a clear view of the past, the future, and where we currently stand, that is now gone. There is no resolution, just a misty horizon. With photography collaged and stitched into fabric and ceramic works, she creates foreboding memorials to our natural world. When the works attempt to shout through the haze, there are traces of defeat and guilt, of hope and courage.
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Bio
Erin Jane Nelson
Erin Jane Nelson (b. 1989, Neenah, WI; lives in Atlanta, GA) received her BFA from the Cooper Union School of Art in 2011. Her work has recently been exhibited in “Between the Waters” at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and “Photography Today: Public Private Relations” at Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich. She has had solo shows at Document Gallery, Chicago (2015, 2017) and Hester, New York (2015) and was included in ATLBNL: The Atlanta Biennial at the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center (2016) among numerous group exhibitions at Downs & Ross, New York (2017), Honor Fraser, Los Angeles (2016), Galerie Division, Montreal (2016), and Ellis King, Dublin (2015). She has contributed to publications including BURNAWAY, The Creative Independent, T: The New York Times Style Magazine, and Art Papers, and has curated exhibitions at the High Museum of Art, Atlanta Contemporary, and elsewhere. In 2016-17, while she and her husband, artist Jason Benson, were studio residents at Atlanta Contemporary, they operated the artist-run space Species out of their shared studio. Species continues to occasionally produce exhibitions itinerantly, most recently presenting the work of Rhode Island-based artist Harry Gould Harvey IV at Atlanta Contemporary earlier this year.
