Painting a Perfect World

Kenton Nelson’s art is rooted in the collective visual memory of American popular culture. His paintings navigate between nostalgia and enigma, between a perfect surface and hidden tensions. Stylistically, they draw on elements of public murals from the New Deal era, simultaneously calling to mind the visual language of advertisements from the 1930s to 1950s and American Scene Painting. However, this controlled, formal order conceals a quiet melancholy and the sensation that this supposedly perfect world is merely imagined. This publication, created in collaboration with Galerie Nikolaus Ruzicska, Salzburg, and Peter Mendenhall Gallery, Pasadena, honours Kenton Nelson’s oeuvre with numerous images, alongside an accompanying essay and an interview with the artist. Text in English and German.