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Artist
Stat
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Nellsmith
received his BFA from the University of Georgia and his MFA
from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is
currently the Art Department Chairman and a professor at
Newberry College. He has been selected for a number of
exhibitions around the Southeast. His work is included in many
private, state, and public collections.
Artist
Statement
“I
do not object to interpretations of my work that emphasize
landscape or figurative elements, although such references are
not my primary objectives.
I recognize, however, that artists are influenced by
their environments. I spend a lot of time on the coast,
especially Edisto Island. These works reflect the strong
light, brilliant color and twisted shapes of the live oaks and
creeks.
The
work, as I see it, is driven by my constant need to refresh,
adjust, destroy, and then resurrect an essentially abstract
vocabulary of line, color, and shape.
I have become, as of recent, almost obsessed over the
characteristics of every mark, every edge, yet, I cannot
accept a movement in the composition that does not contain a
certain raw or edgy quality about it. It is this that gives
the work a furtive or shifty quality that keeps me engaged.
This working and re-working process gives the paintings their
life, their own independent histories. Having described my
process as such, still, I am pleased that my work is large
enough to contain some of the severe beauty of nature and its
force, (as Jeffrey Day once described it) for we are, after
all, ingredients in this.”
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