Kristin Nelson has a popular name. She shares it with an American primitive painter and an actress famous for her work on the TV series Psych (although the actress spells her first name with an âeâ). This is part of the reason sheâs not as easy to find online as you might expect an award-winning artist to be, but itâs also because she can be hesitant to discuss her own work.
Take her latest show, for example. It opens March 3 at ace art inc., and itâs called My Life with Pamela Anderson and Other Works. The name raises a lot of questions, but Nelson is careful with her answers. âItâs just a work that I felt like I had to do,â said the Ajax, Ont.-born artist, who now resides in Winnipeg, âbut I havenât necessarily developed the language to discuss it yet.â
Despite her trepidation, Nelson had answers to the biggest questions surrounding this show, the first one being: âWhat is it?â The answer is a lot of things. âThe show is comprised of digital prints,â she explained. âIt has six or seven digital prints of my family snapshots mixed with paparazzi images of her [Anderson] that I found on the Internet.â
For the most part, the prints show Nelson and the Canadian actress and showgirl engaged in what Nelson called âaction or sport kind of activities: watching a football game, bicycle riding, snorkeling, walking our pets â things like that.â The show also features some cross-stitched portraits of Anderson and a life-sized hay bale made from yarn.
The next logical question, of course, was: âWhy Pamela Anderson?â And again the answer was a lot of things. Nelson has been noted for her interest in âgender performance,â and My Life with Pamela Anderson is partly a result of this interest. âI felt like [Pamela Anderson] is sort of a gender performer, and Iâm really interested in drag culture,â she explained. âI definitely see her as someone who has a very âdragâ personality. [ . . . ] Itâs over the top.â
But Nelson doesnât want to be pigeonholed, and My Life reflects that. âA lot of times my work has been identity based,â she said, âand I feel like Iâm moving away from that.â She also had a more personal motivation for the work. âMainly it was about getting to know her as a person,â she said. âI spent about six months doing this work specifically, researching not only imagery, but also just things about her.â With My Life with Pamela Anderson, Nelson wanted to show that âYou can get to know anyone if you try, and you can get to respect anyone if you try. So itâs sort of about that connection.â
Digital prints, cross-stitching and yarn is a strange combination of media, but Nelson said that the media do not signify anything in particular. She doesnât see the use of traditionally feminine arts like needlework as a statement about gender. âI just see it as being an artist,â she said. âYou use whatever things are available to you. If they are wood, then theyâre wood, and if theyâre yarn, then theyâre yarn. I definitely donât see a distinction at all.â
This was the case with her hay bale, as Nelson explained. âI donât ever think about that stuff. Itâs just sort of like âI want to make a giant hay bale, and I know how to knit.ââ Nelsonâs refusal to commit to one medium or theme makes it more difficult to talk about her work, but it also defines it. âI donât like to be like âI do this kind of art,ââ she said. She isnât the only one of course. As Nelson pointed out, âYouâre not necessarily a painter anymore, or a printmaker anymore.â