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Nell’s small oil paintings, measuring 8x10 inches on birch panels, capture the essence of a moment, a place, a sensation in nature. Less specific places than visual haikus, the works conjure a universal understanding and perception of space, sky, land, clouds, grass, trees. Most of the artist’s rich paintings, sometimes built in thick impasto, reference something the artist has seen in nature and remembers, a cloud formation, a nighttime sky. When Nell sees a natural phenomenon he would like to transform in paint, he often takes notes on colors, shapes, light, atmosphere, desiring to re-create nature’s palette in his unique distilled format. He is as captivated by the light and shadow of day as he is by the mysteries of the night, by the way light flickers on waves in the ocean, sparkles through dense summer leaves, and is minimally present when the sun leaves the sky.
2006, oil on panel, 6 x 10 inches
oil on panel, 6 x 10 inches
oil on panel, 6 x 10 inches
Unlike his earlier panel paintings of the same scale of more literal “scenes” in the landscape, trees, flowers, a vista that suggested a place, the new paintings are more abstract as they focus in on more intimate details. Color has changed in the new works, whites are more filled with light, deep dark blue skies emit the air of night. Skies have deep grays and umbers in the clouds; umber shadows fill most of a composition in a way that might suggest an ominous moment, and yet the artist allays our anxiety of a storm with the warmth of his hues.
Nell’s paintings, all of the same scale, are not titled, but numbered. Each is called “Composition #,” and each is consecutively numbered, one after the other, like a tone poem. The artist’s intellectual approach to his identification of the works removes any personal association and focuses on the meditative quality of the paintings. His genuine fascination of the natural world, and close observation thereof, allows him to delve deeper into the nuances of nature. Sometimes an ethereal white cloud becomes the entire painting with the slightest glimmer of blue at the edge; at others he fills the panel with a night sky, so dense and dark the viewer’s eye has to adjust to the lack of light to see the tiny sparkling stars and the ghost-like shadows of black trees. It is clear from the artist’s “compositions” that structure is as important to him as is the desire to paint what is “essential” in nature. Rarely does he depict an entire “scene,” for Nell the smaller passage or detail suggests a larger universe.
2006, oil on panel, 6 x 10 inches
2005, oil on panel, 6 x 10 inches
2005, oil on panel, 6 x 10 inches
2005, oil on panel, 6 x 10 inches
Nell says of his works: “They are interpretations of scenes, rather than replications.” Nell draws the viewer into his panels in ways that large paintings do not offer. His works are rich invitations to the viewer to contemplate nature in a quiet and reverent way.
Carlton Nell was born in Mobile, Alabama in 1962. He received a B.F.A. from Auburn University in Alabama and an M.F.A. from Georgia State University, Atlanta. He is the recipient of an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Alabama State Council on the Arts. The artist’s work has been shown at The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio; Chattahoochee Valley Art Museum, LaGrange, Georgia; Columbus Museum of Art, Georgia; Huntsville Museum of Art, Alabama; Masur Museum of Art, Monroe, Louisiana; Meridian Museum of Art, Mississippi; Mobile Museum of Art, Alabama; The Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Alabama; St. Petersburg Center for the Arts, Florida; Wiregrass Museum of Art, Dothan, Alabama.
Carlton Nell’s work is included in the collections of Chattahoochee Valley Art Museum, La Grange, Georgia; Evansville Museum of Arts, History and Science, Evansville, Indiana; Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, Tennessee and Huntsville Museum of Art, Huntsville, Alabama.
Carlton Nell’s work is included in the collections of Chattahoochee Valley Art Museum, La Grange, Georgia; Evansville Museum of Arts, History and Science, Evansville, Indiana; Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, Tennessee and Huntsville Museum of Art, Huntsville, Alabama.