Catherine Nelson

Born in Shreveport, LA, Catherine Nelson is an installation artist working primarily with wood, textiles, and metals. She earned a BA with Distinctions in Art History and Visual Arts with a double major in Spanish at Duke University, and a Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Studio Art from the Maryland Institute College of Art. 

She has exhibited in spaces including BronxArtSpace in New York, Redline Contemporary Art Center in Denver, AUTOMAT in Philadelphia, Antenna Gallery in New Orleans, Binyamina Gallery in Tel Aviv, and PHILOBIBLON in Rome. Her artist residencies include Vermont Studio Center, Women’s Studio Workshop, and Second State Press.   She also co-founded Southern Heat Exchange, an exhibition space and digital residency with emerging artists.

She has collaborated with New Orleans-based dance company Known Mass and musician MJ Guider and has apprenticed in craft-based small businesses, all of which inform her approach to artmaking. She is currently an MFA candidate in Sculpture and Installation at the University of Connecticut.

CV available here.

My work reflects a curiosity about materials and their origins in the landscape. I collect, observe, and compose with natural dyes, patinas, objects, and drawings. I take cues from riverbank clutter and industrial waterways, mineral hues and local geology, lumber species and fishing traps. I arrange both made and found objects into vignettes that explore dynamics of agency and material. 

I am interested in physical thinking and embodied memory: a craftsperson’s expertise, a dancer’s improvised phrase. Having grown up in Louisiana, issues of toxicity and climate change also concern me; turning my attention to my senses soothes personal and shared grief. Weaving these influences together, my work serves as an experimental re-mapping, a space to practice new ways of relating to my surroundings.