While it’s neither completely outsider art nor folk art, the work of John Randall Nelson shares common ground with those styles, particularly in its rawness and nonconformity. He uses symbols and archetypes in his paintings and sculptures, having developed a distinct artistic vocabulary over the years that materializes in his work in text and graphic elements.
Nelson was born in Princeton, Illinois, but works out of Phoenix, Arizona. Early visits to the Art Institute of Chicago introduced Nelson to painters such as Jim Nutt, Roger Brown and Karl Wirsum. He decided to move to Arizona to study at Arizona State University where he earned his MFA in 1996.
Nelson’s subjects are as playful as they are peculiar — his textured paintings, which feature collages, layers of oil paint and an integration of text, feature everything from animals and flowers to imagined human-animal hybrids or everyday objects such as shoes and bicycles. Many paintings are populated with brightly colored polka dot patterns while his Pop art-inflected steel sculptures take on fantastical forms and draw on the Pattern and Decoration movement, which emerged in cities such as Los Angeles and New York during the early 1970s.
Nelson has exhibited all over the United States. His sculptures can be found at the Scottsdale Center for the Arts, the Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix and the Phoenix Children’s Hospital. Nelson’s work is held in a number of private, public and corporate collections including Apple Inc., Phoenix Public Art and Design, the American Folk Art Museum and many other institutions.
On 1stDibs, find a collection of original John Randall Nelson paintings and other art.
Keep Trying To
By John Randall Nelson
Located in Los Angeles, CA
"Keep Trying To", diptych, mixed media on panel — 94 x 94 inches. John Randall Nelson is an Arizona-based painter and sculptor. Nelson’s works are layered with his own personal lan...
Mixed Media, Panel
I Dream Of You
By John Randall Nelson
Located in Los Angeles, CA
John Randall Nelson’s paintings are layered with his own personal language consisting of patterns, symbols, and archetypes that may not make any literal sense but play on subconsciou...
Mixed Media, Oil, Acrylic, Panel
For Real
By John Randall Nelson
Located in Los Angeles, CA
John Randall Nelson is an Arizona-based painter and sculptor. Nelson’s works are layered with his own personal language consisting of patterns, symbols, and archetypes that may not make any literal sense but play on subconscious associations. His paintings are thick with poured pigment, saturated washes and worked with layers of drawing and collage. While Nelson's work is akin to outsider, folk art, it should be noted that he received his MFA from Arizona State University in 1995 and has completed commissions for projects as diverse as the National Endowment for the Arts, the United States Postal Service...
Metal
It's All My Fault
By John Randall Nelson
Located in Los Angeles, CA
John Randall Nelson’s paintings are layered with his own personal language consisting of patterns, symbols, and archetypes that may not make any literal sense but play on subconscious associations. His paintings are thick with paint, poured pigment and saturated washes with layers of drawing and collage. While Nelson's work is akin to outsider, folk art, it should be noted that he received his MFA from Arizona State University in 1995 and has completed commissions for clients as diverse as the National Endowment for the Arts, the United States Postal Service...
Mixed Media, Oil, Acrylic, Panel
For All The Graces
By John Randall Nelson
Located in Los Angeles, CA
John Randall Nelson’s paintings are layered with his own personal language consisting of patterns, symbols, and archetypes that may not make any literal sense but play on subconsciou...
Mixed Media, Oil, Acrylic, Panel
Jaz
By John Randall Nelson
Located in Los Angeles, CA
John Randall Nelson’s paintings are layered with his own personal language consisting of patterns, symbols, and archetypes that may not make any literal sense but play on subconsciou...
Mixed Media, Oil, Acrylic, Panel
Signs and Wonders
By Jason Hackenwerth
Located in Denver, CO
Jason Hackenwerth is a multidisciplinary artist working in the fields of painting, sculpture, and installation. His loose and spontaneous paintings begin in response to social, polit...
Canvas, Acrylic
Untitled
By Jordy Kerwick
Located in London, GB
Jordy Kerwick Untitled, 2024 Oil, acrylic and spray paint on canvas 250 x 200 cm 78 1/2 x 98 1/2 inches Jordan Kerwick’s gritty, thickly impastoed paintings range from haunting figu...
Canvas, Oil, Spray Paint, Acrylic
Subject (abstract expressionisting pop art painting)
By Wayne Timm
Located in Wilton Manors, FL
Wayne Timm (b.1937). Subject, 1966. Oil on canvas. 36 x 40 inches; 37 x 41 inches framed. Signed, titled and dated en verso. Minor surface cracking. Paint layer is stable with no fla...
Oil
"Untitled" Lawrence Philp, Abstracted Surrealist Forms by Afro-American Artist
Located in New York, NY
Lawrence Philp Untitled Oil and acrylic on canvas 75 1/2 x 79 inches Lawrence Philp, the son of Jamaican immigrants, studied at the Rhode Island School of Design and was included i...
Canvas, Oil, Acrylic
German Contemporary art by Paul Sergounine - Mind Mechanics 1
Located in Paris, IDF
Oil pastel on canvas, Paul Sergounine is a contemporary artist currently based in Tbilisi, Georgia. Working primarily with oil stick and oil pastel on acrylic ground on canvas, Serg...
Canvas, Oil Pastel
Conflict, Painting, Oil on Other
By Richard Szkutnik
Located in Yardley, PA
"Conflict" original abstract landscape oil on panel :: Painting :: Abstract :: This piece comes with an official certificate of authenticity signed by the artist :: Ready to Hang: No...
Oil
