Liz Nielsen

LIZ NIELSEN

511 West 22nd Street New York NY 10011

LIZ NIELSEN

515 West 22nd Street New York NY 10011

525 West 22nd Street New York NY 10011

520 West 21st Street New York NY 10011

PORTAL TO PARADISE

By Grace Edquist

Reality is a slippery thing. The concept hinges on a shared vision of truth—an unspoken agreement on what is and isn’t real that, when broken, unleashes infinite possibilities. This unfurling of materiality can be terrifying, as when foundational facts come into question; or truly liberating, as when the mind is freed to consider anything and everything that ever has been or ever could be true, in this universe or another.

In the New York artist Liz Nielsen’s epic photograms, or light paintings, as she calls them, the blurring of reality is a virtue, not a vice. Nielsen’s glossy renderings of overlapping shapes in luscious colors present a world of untapped potential and unlimited interpretation. The myriad formations are semi-recognizable in the way a dream resembles something close to waking life, but with divergent details—a vacation from reality but not a total departure. We build these worlds in our minds partially from the tangible things we’ve seen, and partially from the intangible feelings that arise from our particular life experiences. The play between the two is where intrigue lies. In this way, Nielsen’s light paintings encapsulate the joy of the undiscovered and a yearning to yield to the unknown. What a great relief it is to capitulate to forces beyond ourselves, to put human hubris aside and take in the puzzle before us. At a time when there is much to overwhelm the soul, when facing the day can offer too much of a burden to bear, a trip into Nielsen’s dreamscapes offers a welcome reprieve. What joy her worlds deliver, and just when we need it most. Lose yourself in the candy-coated glaciers and lakes, roads and rainbows, arcs of stone and orbs of light. What is art if not an escape into something greater?

But do not confuse the metaphysical sentiment of Nielsen’s work with a detached process. Though her light paintings give off the dreamy aura that anything is possible, they are the result of a meticulous, methodical process in which she arranges compositions made out of any given material atop large sheets of photo-sensitive paper and exposes only certain layers at a time. The exposures of each layer—

3

sometimes 10, 25, or even 50 per work—must be planned in advance, since they are done in a specific order during one long session in the darkroom within her studio near the Hudson River. While her process may start with experimentation, in the end, it’s more like a tightly choreographed dance. “I can’t be that intuitive or they won’t work,” she said of her photograms during a studio visit. Her background in painting and classic photography—which led to playing with negatives and ultimately to her current photogram form—are apparent in the way she uses the light as paint and the paper almost as one would use a camera shutter.

Nielsen has studied the scientific processes behind color and light, learning how wavelengths and exposure times result in different hues and intensities. Look closely at the edges of some of her shapes or along whole borders, and you will see a layering of exposures, a sign that her work has its technical roots in photochemistry, however significantly it has evolved beyond the simple point-and-shoot. (There is no actual camera involved here.) The bleeding, wisping colors throughout each piece breathe movement and life into the work, providing a new level of depth. It is as if the whole thing is vibrating, pulsating off the page.

In a juxtaposition most fitting for the year 2022, when all but four of the works included in the exhibition were made, Nielsen’s photograms somehow pair vacancy— with scant humanoid figures appearing in the show—with ebullience. Credit, at least in part, the terrific colors for the latter. In her more sweeping landscapes, like Lava Ocean, horizontal layers like empty roads, cut across the paper. Instead of feeling desolate, the scene is enlivened by brilliant magenta, crimson, and goldenrod. Swirls, crinkles, and the other textures embedded in each layer add to the dreaminess.

Nielsen uses objects like cellophane, candy wrappers, and spray paint to create a magical effect, evoking clouds or snow. I was instantly reminded of a drive in Norway years ago on a freshly plowed mountain road, enclosed on both sides by eight-foot-tall walls of snow—an ethereal journey that itself produced tears.

Pulsating color also illuminates Outdoor Concert. The rounded formations in the foreground—which I’ve come to think of as the revelers taking in the titular performance—recall Jolly Ranchers left in the sun until they’ve turned gooey, melted

4

blobs of glistening sugar so gorgeously tempting that you can’t help but eat them. One look at this work, and I know exactly where I want to be: in this throng of concertgoers, taking in the summer heat, shoulder to shoulder as we sing merrily along.

Beneath the surface, at the heart of this collection, is Nielsen’s interest in quantum physics, particularly entanglement theory, which posits that when two particles come into contact, their properties mix, and even after separation the two are forever connected. The broader implications are enticing. Two people who interact are forever changed, on a molecular level, from their contact with each other. It gives endless meaning to our personal connections, especially our deepest ones.

In Nielsen’s Heated Conversation, two flowers (or we could say two people) speak passionately—and even if they walk away, even if they never see each other again, they remain forever linked. That principle applies to separate works, too. Nielsen sees her works as semi-entangled with mountains and pathways mirroring one another: all various threads of the same story. The haloed spheres are thought to orbit one another. Maybe they are lost lovers, never truly separated, even in division.

Ever interested in space and time, the artist subtly represents doors or gateways in her compositions, tapping into the desire to be in several places simultaneously. New versions of Nielsen’s now iconic stone arches (Sky Stone Toro, Glowing Stone Arch) and stacks (Sneaky Stone Stack, Fashion Stone Stack, Friend Stones) appear in this show. The floating, silky stones glow with color and glee, each one a portal to the next, as if we could hop from one to the other and descend into a distant land, or another dimension entirely.

The theory of the singularity, the point when the growth of technology outpaces humans’ ability to control it, serves as another reference in Nielsen’s work. A hypothetical moment in time toward which we are slowly crawling, or perhaps recklessly hurtling, is a visually arresting concept. Convergence is always just around the bend—at the edge of almost, the border of forever. It’s a considerable brain teaser, which no doubt stems from Nielsen’s interest in and formal study of philosophy as an undergraduate.

5

Left: Etel Adnan, Untitled, 2017, Oil on canvas, 13 x 9 1/2 inches, 33 x 24 cm

As with most artists, Nielsen finds inspiration everywhere. Art making is done in the context of one’s entire world: seeing, thinking, feeling, talking, and so on. We do not exist in a vacuum, so neither can art. Her singular style—with its unique mix of photography and painting, abstraction and representation, the interplay of positive and negative space—cannot be placed in one school or movement. Instead, she draws on a bevy of artists and thinkers: photography from Francesca Woodman and Wolfgang Tillmans, the otherworldly shapes of Joan Miró, the light and color of James Turrell, the stirring writings of Stephen Hawking and Joe Dispenza. Nielsen’s compositions recall Etel Adnan’s and Wassily Kandinsky’s geometries and Helen Frankenthaler’s abstractions, and her love of surrealism shines through in all her works. In Bon Voyage, an homage to the Dutch artist Bas Jan Ader’s final work of art (he embarked on a solo journey across the Atlantic and never returned), Nielsen presents a ship at sea under the light of a crescent moon—a sign of hope, she says, that we may always return.

In the worlds depicted in Nielsen’s light paintings, time is an infinite loop. One is always arriving, looking through, wandering in, traversing. Her saturated, gradient colors burst forth as an invitation to dwell. In our overly scheduled lives, with our selfimposed high expectations, our internal and external pressures, it’s nice to consider a kind of liminal space where to be or not to be is actually not the question—we are

6

Helen Frankenthaler, Carousel, 1979

Acrylic on canvas, 86 1/2 x 206 1/2 inches, 219.7 x 524.5 cm

always just being. Here, the traditional conflict-resolution arc takes place within the viewer instead of within the painting: What arises within you when you see these pictures, and what resolves the longer you stare? Detaching from earthly burdens as we contemplate allows us to consider larger questions of purpose and meaning.

There is a deep optimism inherent in Nielsen’s work—a dream that somewhere out there, in this universe or another, we are wide-eyed and at ease, happy to surrender to life’s greatest mysteries.

Grace Edquist is an art writer and editor based in Brooklyn, New York.

7

10

Centerstage Stone Stack, 2019