Today we’d like to introduce you to Kenton Nelson.
Kenton, please kick things off for us by telling us about yourself and your journey so far.
I attended Long Beach State and Otis Parsons for Graphic Design. For 20 years, I had a successful career in Graphic Design and illustration. With the advent of the computer and “desktop publishing”… compromising my job and design itself. My income went to 25% of what it was the year before. At the age of 40, I realized that a lot of my heroes were painters, so I sold my big house and fancy car and rented a small place to alleviate my obligations and started to teach myself how to oil paint… It’s 27 years, and 1200+ paintings later, and I am continuing to learn.
I work hard (50 hours a week), have one or two exhibitions a year, have had the opportunity to get my work into Museums (with the help of my Galleries). and I consider myself fortunate. I have never sold work directly out of my studio and strongly advise my Galleries not to “discount my work”. I watercolor, have tried my hand at sculpture and build mosaics of my work. I am thankful for the opportunity to be an artist.
Can you give our readers some background on your art?
I am primarily a painter, making art… what I would consider ideal images, figurative and architectural. My work is based on my vision of life and how I hoped it would be. It is based on the most influential aspects of my youth, my parent’s ideals, the optimistic advertising of the 50 and 60’s, American movies and T.V. shows, and mostly life growing up in Southern California. A Social Idealism. My heroes were the American Scene painters (…California Cool Jazz for the visual arts). When Modernism was advancing from Europe, there were number of painters that concentrated on their American Voice (Grant Wood, Tom Benton, Edward Hopper. I stylize the figures and objects in my images, hoping for a direct and simplistic effect. Like the WPA painters, and the artists working during the depression, my hope is that my artwork would inspire and uplift people in this confusing day and age. I am trying to create “a place I’d rather be”. Simply stated, my vision attempted in my work is mythic, bucolic idealism, using stylized images for escapism.
How do you think about success, as an artist, and what do quality do you feel is most helpful?
My success is defined by my personal improvement as and artist. Each painting has to be better than the last. If I don’t feel challenged and “out of balance” by the piece I am working on, I am not trying hard enough. The goal is to be able to create a “Masterpiece” in my lifetime. This may be unattainable but it makes for good striving. Only we as individuals know what we are capable of, and I feel each creative must work to make “great work”. To me, this is hopeful but also keeps “the bar high”.
What’s the best way for someone to check out your work and provide support?
Visit kentonnelson.com, @kenton_nelson, The website will have my upcoming schedule of exhibitions, and Instagram will show people what I am up to. I will have a local Exhibit with petermendenhallgallery.com early this Summer, and an exhibition next Fall in Salzburg, Austria at Nikolaus Ruzicska, Ruzicska.com.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.kentonnelson.com
- Phone: 626 792-5252
- Email: studio@kentonnelson.com
- Instagram: @Kenton_nelson
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kentonnelsonfan
Image Credit:
Erwin Darmali
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