Chad Nelson

I like to think of the Apes surrounding the Monolith in 2001: Space Odyssey; they attempt to acknowledge the monumentality and grandeur of a contemporary symbol, even if they don’t understand it. The origin of my imagery exists in the back of our unconscious brains, posing as potential monikers, emblems and narratives. On their best day, the works are just surrogates for the real, put under the magnifying glass of a medium. Whatever they are, they start out as images from the newspaper and internet. After blowing up the image, I paint the digital noise that accompanies the enlargement. The paintings are constructed in transparent grids. I work from 4 colors (CMYK) and attempt to mimic the action of a consumer grade printer. My aim is to distill and express the visual evidence of an image being reproduced.