Dan Nelson

Dan Nelson is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, and musician who plays with symbols, signals, and signifiers to explore how humans communicate and create meaning.

One piece that is a good example of his diverse practice is “The Corporation.” Based on his experience working at a successful startup from 2009-2015, this series explored the culture and aesthetics of the corporate world in a wide-ranging exhibition with over 120 works of video, photography, sound art, text-based works, propaganda posters, sculptures, interactive pieces, t-shirts, and paintings. A limited-edition 64-page book includes photographs taken in offices and warehouses, corporate haiku written during long meetings, spam email promotions, digital collages, office humor, and more.

He is the son of a writer/editor/bookshop owner mother and a woodworker/Renaissance man father, which explains a process devoted equally to the conceptual and the material. He is a graduate of Saint John’s College’s Great Books program, a wide-ranging liberal arts education encompassing literature, philosophy, and science that has informed his diverse multidisciplinary practice. Like Yves Klein, he is a self-taught artist, with some training in photography, music, and video. He has been a newspaper photographer, a touring musician, and writer. He has sailed around the world on traditionally-rigged ships to Asia, the Caribbean, and Canada.

He has had numerous solo exhibitions in the Bay Area, at The LAB, NIAD Art Center, The Compound Gallery, Boontling, and others. He has toured as a drummer in the U.S. and Europe. His most well-known work is the conceptual coffee table book “All Known Metal Bands,” which was published by McSweeney’s, won an AIGA design award, and was written up in Rolling Stone magazine.

He will have a residency and exhibition in late 2019 at ProArts Gallery in Oakland.