Brian Nelson Sculpture

Statement

Nelson’s sculptures are an amalgamation of his interest in biology, sociology, chemistry, and the nature of time. His investigations relate to personal experiences with genetics, pharmacology and their commercial industries. These three-dimensional renderings of objects are created from molecular ball structure images found on websites like Wikipedia and Google.

 Nelson has been using software to render these image models. He projects the images to scale to make a rough blueprint of the sculpture and form in three dimensions. These structures are then fabricated from cast bronze, stainless steel and tubing. As a sculptor, welder and fabricator these sculptures have become the most complicated pieces Nelson has created. He hopes to lead the viewer to question the nature of the object, and the how and why it exists.

This series of sculptures entitled “Adverse Effects Include” is an autobiographic representation of a 21-year history of a relationship with pharmacology and my attempt to understand its effects on creativity. The three dimensional object becomes a Macroscopic representation of a model that happens to microscopically and physiologically control or alter human behavior.

Nelson’s intentions are to produce work that has a conceptual framework that will embrace ideas, and engage the viewer. His work has been called cold and impersonal or distant. Nothing could be further from the truth. His work is blatantly honest and extremely personal. Materials and objects don’t tell the entire story in his work. Nelson investigating and describing an obscure, subtle science and this experience is entirely his own story.