Catherine Nelson is a visual artist who uses the digital medium to paint images together into personal and imaginary landscapes. Trained as a painter in Sydney and London and with years of experience in the creation of visual effects for feature films like Moulin Rouge and Harry Potter, she now has dedicated her skills to her own art work combining the techniques from both these worlds into a new contemporary art medium.
Her recent series Future Memories has been exhibited in Australia, New Zealand, China and Europe and has captivated audiences and art collectors in cities like Sydney, Paris, Beijing and Seoul. Future memories will soon be travelling again to art fairs in Paris, and Singapore.
Feb 3rd 'Out of the Darkness', Gallerysmith,
Gallerysmith Melbourne, Australia
March 30th Queensland Festival of Photography Exhibition,
QCP Brisbane, Australia
Catherine Nelson was born in Sydney in 1970. After leaving school she completed her art education at the College of Fine Arts in Sydney and then moved quickly into the world of film and television, creating visual effects for films such as Moulin Rouge, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,300, and Australia. Her job has taken her around the world having lived and worked in Milan, London, Rome, Reykjavik, Bratislava, Brussels and throughout Australia. In 2008 she returned to her studio and began to dedicate her time to her own art practice.
When I embraced the medium of photography, I felt that taking a picture that represented only what was within the frame of the lens wasn't expressing my personal and inner experience of the world around me. With the eye and training of a painter and with years of experience behind me in film visual effects, I began to take my photos to another level.
The 'Future Memories' series comprises of 20 floating worlds, meticulously composed with thousands of assembled details. Visual poetry, nature photography and digital techniques blend together to give shape to these transcendental landscapes. The result is a contemporary pictorial mythology that subtly reminds the viewer of a profound truth: that it is in the flourishing variety of the local that the fate of the world resides.
Queensland Festival of Photography Exhibition, Queensland Centre of Photography, Brisbane, Australia
'Out of the Darkness', Gallerysmith, Melbourne, Australia
'Flipside, Australian Photography', Project A7, Sarah Lee Artworks and Projects, LA, USA
Art Stage Singapore
Photo LA
'Future Memories', Galerie Paris-Beijing, Beijing, China
'Future Memories', Gallerysmith, Melbourne, Australia
'Future Memories', Dominik Mersch Gallery, Sydney, Australia
'Future Memories', Galerie Paris-Beijing, Paris, France
'Creation', Australian Centre of Photography, Sydney, Australia
Bowness Photography Prize, 2011, Finalist Exhibition, Melbourne, Australia
Royal Bank of Scotland Emerging Artist Award Show, Sydney, Australia
'New Worlds', Hanmi Museum of Photography, Seoul, Korea
'Hyper Realistic', Dominik Mersch Gallery, Sydney, Australia
'Magic Spaces', Today Art Museum, Beijing, China
'Plus One', Dominik Mersch Gallery, Sydney, Australia
Art Paris 2011
Auckland Art Fair, New Zealand
Slick 11, Paris, France
'Lake', Lake Macquarie Regional Gallery, Australia
Royal Bank of Scotland, Finalist exhibition for Emerging Artist Award, Australia
Blake Director’s Cut Exhibition, Australia
Future Artist, Nikon Next online exhibition, Japan - http://www.nikonnext.com
Winner of Eclectica 2011, Frensham Fellowship Art Prize
Winner of the Royal Bank of Scotland Emerging Artist Client Choice Award