Artist Statement:
Throughout my childhood and into my mid-twenties, I was a ballet dancer. That intense training of spatial awareness and interpretive questioning is still deeply stamped in my DNA. A painting to me is a kind of choreography; there’s a haptic dance that takes place from my optical experience of an image, through to the way my nervous system signals to my body how to translate and record it. As painter/dancer I tease out meaning through working and reworking, coming up to speed as I gain understanding, and making the last strikes with absolute commitment.
Biography:
An honours graduate of Emily Carr College of Art and Design, Val Nelson has been the recipient of a number of grants and awards, including finalist for the Royal Bank Painting Competition. She has been represented by Bau-Xi Gallery (Vancouver/Toronto) and Galerie de Bellefeuille (Montreal) and attended a residency at the Vermont Studio Centre.
Val’s work has been published in Carte Blanche Volume II (Magenta Foundation), International Painting Annual 3 (Manifest Drawing and Research Centre), and Capilano University Press. Public institutions that have collected her work include Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Canada Council Art Bank, Surrey Art Gallery, and Vancouver General Hospital. Val has taught painting and drawing at the Shadbolt Arts Centre, Gordon Smith Gallery, Vancouver Island School of Art, and her private art studio. She currently lives and works in Courtenay, BC.
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