Nelson's paintings draw on multiple pictorial landscape traditions, paying homage to and borrowing from artists such as Albrecht Altdorfer, Albert Bierstadt, George Caleb Bingham and Caspar David Friedrich. Her works address both the experience of landscape and the complexity of its representation, combining reality, memory and mediated experience.
Joan Nelson (b. 1958, CA, USA) lives and works in upstate New York.
Selected solo exhibitions include Adams and Ollman, Portland (2017, 2015); Michael Kohn Gallery, Los Angeles (2011, 2002); Fleisher/Ollman Gallery, Philadelphia (2011); Robert Miller Gallery, New York (2001, 1998, 1995, 1993, 1990, 1989); John Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco (1994); and P.P.O.W., New York (1986, 1985). Her work has been included in group exhibitions at institutions including the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth; the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond; Witte de With, Rotterdam; and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice. Her work is held in public collections including the Museum of Modern Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Brooklyn Museum; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Minneapolis Institute of Art; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.