Sympathy for the Devil
Riffing on The Rolling Stones’ song of the same name Sympathy for the Devil comprises a series of 100 painted canvases that play on the motive of a 33 1/3 rpm record. Each is uniformly painted in silver and matt except for the coloured enamelled centres that denote individuality. As with most of Nelson's work, the meaning is contained within the process where the handmade meets acute industrial precision. Whether it is a hyper-real exact replica of a photograph, an abstracted minimal rendering of stripes on a wall or the incessant casting of 3D objects, all are managed from a set of instructions, followed exactly to perform a kind of perfection, and more importantly, to give rise to problematising the very nature of representation. As Nelson has stated, " In acting out this exactness it is my aim to claim a type of witness to the anxiety and struggle of contemporary living."