Hey! I am Daniel Nelson, a visual artist from Brooklyn, NY who works with multiple forms of media such as painting, drawing, graphic design, and illustration to explore self expression and my personal social views. My work is centered around concepts of race, family, identity, religion, existence and distortion. An idea that I touch upon in all of my pieces is the distortion of narratives. Specifically, the black narrative. As a Jamaican American, the black narrative is a history I identify with and serves as an archive for me to personally connect to and learn from. In each story there’s always something that can be preserved and passed through generations. In a way, it becomes a legacy. Yet, I find myself always trying to piece things together or asking questions about those that came before me due to the simple fact that our history has either been fragmented, oversimplified or silenced by mostly non black individuals in institutions and media. This has been detrimental in shaping the image of blackness that can and has created negative biases. This irony is established in my pieces through the use of collage and distortion (whether that may be fragmentation, or the emphasis of negative spaces) to satirize the distortion of black narratives. My interpretation on subjects like history, earlier forms of language, literature, film, music, visual arts, and even my own experiences all inspire me and are touched upon through the use of symbolism in my pieces. Particularly, visual artists such as Barkley L. Hendricks, Faith Ringgold and Carrie Mae Weems inspired me to use visual art as a way to explore how and what is intentionally preserved within our own narratives by observing and representing ourselves. Our history is there and I use my practices as a way to investigate and piece it together myself.

Currently, I’m not selling these pieces because they have already been sold. So my apologies, but if you have any questions or want more information on my work, feel free to contact me and check out my instagram. Godspeed.