Born in Louisiana and currently based in Connecticut, Catherine Nelson is a visual artist working across media. She frequently uses wood, natural dyes, and metals, but much of her work begins with drawing and movement.

She has exhibited nationally and internationally at venues including BronxArtSpace in New York, Redline Contemporary Art Center in Denver, AUTOMAT in Philadelphia, Antenna Gallery in New Orleans, and PHILOBIBLON in Rome. 

She has participated in artist residencies at Vermont Studio Center, Women’s Studio Workshop, and Denver Public Library's ideaLAB.  From 2018 - 2021, Nelson co-produced Southern Heat Exchange with April Bachtel and Marge Parsons, an exhibition-space-turned-digital-residency for emerging artists with ties to the American South. She also has a rich collaboration history with Known Mass dance company (New Orleans).

She holds a BA from Duke University, a Post-Bacc Certificate from the Maryland Institute College of Art, and an MFA from the University of Connecticut, as well as an MBA from Tulane University.

Nelson currently supports graduate and undergraduate artists in her role as the Fabrication Shop Manager for the wood shop at Yale School of Art.

CV available on request.

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.