Catherine T. Nelson is an artist working at the intersection of printmaking, drawing, painting, sculpture and photography.  Her work is motivated by a sense of wonder at the everyday: a hole in a wall gives way to a wild cave, a crack in the sidewalk morphs into a nebula in another galaxy, sap crawling down a tree melts into a volcanic eruption.  She likes making big things small and small things big.  Her prints build up through improvisation with materials, leveraging the power of printmaking to repeat and expand on imagery.   Nelson also hand-prints a monthly zine called “Puncture” to experiment with and trade new ideas. Currently within the zine she is exploring how movement in a drawing can shape a book.  “Puncture” is reMade with materials Catherine found at the re, like green legal hanging files salvaged from film sets, reclaimed maps, and reused craft papers. You can find issues of “Puncture” for sale at The Resource Exchange.

The work featured in our reCreate Gallery was an example of her focus on cyanotype, a sun printing process that involves using drawings and found materials to create images on paper. Catherine includes reclaimed materials from the re in her cyanotype process, like acetate, wire, paint, and other objects. You can see her work at The Resource Exchange throughout the month of March. Catherine’s sun prints can also be seen in the Place/Process exhibition at The Free Library of Philadelphia, Print and Picture Gallery, 2nd Floor at 1901 Vine St. from March 2nd-April 10th. Nelson has exhibited internationally from Philly to Tel Aviv, and she lives and works in New Orleans.