Brian Nelson

I am a painter and printmaker based in Seatoun, Wellington. I trained as a graphic designer at the old Wellington Polytechnic School of Design. It was a small and venerable institution with limited places and high standards. I learned to paint from professional illustrators rather than fine artists. I will be forever grateful for this skills-based training. When I finally got around to studying fine arts at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, I found those skills gave me a distinct advantage over most of my fellow students in terms of realising ideas. I gained my MFA in 2006.

Subject Material
I started with painting landscapes of my local area - Wellington Harbour, south coast, the Kapiti Coast and Horowhenua. I like the shapes of the land, and the light at particular times and seasons. I also like the modest and incidental structures you find in the environment - sheds, signal boxes, and harbour lane markers. More recently I have branched out to portraiture and Kiwiana-themed paintings.

As well as paintings I produce prints in small editions, in mezzotint, woodcut and serigraphy.