Lana Nelson

About

Lana is a visual artist currently working in photography, acrylics and handmade paper. Her earliest work was in clothing and fashion design incorporating her own screen printed fabrics.

Recurring themes in her work include concepts of nurture and relationships between people, places, objects and time. Her island home of Tasmania means she is often drawn to the coast and the sea and these environments are often the subject or context of her work. Her pigment prints are derived from her lifelong private collection of photographs that are then digitally edited to allow her to ‘paint in’ her responses to the people, places, objects and events captured through her camera lens. The editing process (including digital drawing and painting) enables the manipulation of images – transposing their visual aesthetic forward and backward in time, in style, in colour, in texture, meaning and intensity.

Her work often blurs the boundary between reality and abstraction. Conscious choices in the selection of printing substrates ranging from her delicately textured handmade papers through to a variety of artists’ and photographic papers are also used to convey her aesthetic and often political intent.