J Nelson

J Nelson is a queer nonbinary artist living and working in Detroit as a mender and paper maker. They are a 2021 graduate with honors of the Visual and Critical Studies program at the School of Visual Arts where they studied art writing, philosophy, and history in tandem with studios like printmaking, fibers, and multi-medium performance. They offer paper and mending workshops through various community spaces around Detroit while developing a personal practice centered around recycled and upcycled materials.

ARTIST STATEMENT:

Trained in fine art disciplines of drawing/printmaking and craft practices such as fibers/textiles, my foundation as an artist stands firmly in conveying and confronting our society’s consumption. Passion for community, nature, and circular-consumption has developed my practice from depicting the collective empty feelings overconsumption merits, into an educational experiential composite maintaining our personal connections to objects as we change and materials degrade. The inevitable disruption change brings to life is the natural state of ecology, and by transforming discardable materials into something new, we evolve with that change. Mending and paper making take the ideas and emotions previously expressed through images into a process, a radically shifting mode away from relying on industry, and back towards the slow habits of communal creative living. Sharing these processes through workshops does the extra work of perpetuating the skills needed to change.