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“Creating wood figures, some 14 feet high, the Tempe artist draws on the power of American Folk Art.”
Amy Abrams. Click here to read.

Q: If you look really closely, you can see words on the sculptures. What are those? A: They are screen-printed affirmations … each sculpture has its own affirmation, such as “Really amazing,” “Everything will be okay,” “Everything here is wonderful.” Kelly Huang for The Arizona Republic  Click here to read.

“When placed together these columns of various width, resemble a forest. they appear as 3D manifestations of his 2D works, almost as if they have stepped out of the paintings.” Jenna Duncan for JAVA Magazine.
Click here to read.

“These two works (one 2-d and one 3-d) conjure iconic folk art forms and imagery that touch on the sectarian and socially mish-mashed nature of the Arizona experience.” Click here to view exhibition.

“Nelson’s work is at once urban and rustic, unsettling and folksy—reminiscent of San Francisco’s Mission School in the ’90s.” Rani Molla. Click here to read.

“His paintings, drawings, sculptures and video all prokoke a zany delight, thus leading the viewer into Nelson’s own paradoxically jokey view of the universe” Page 34. Click here to read.

Fresh Paint Gallery, Culver City, CA. November 2 through December 21, 2013. Featuring: John Randall Nelson and Raul De La Torre. Click to read.

“Like the meanings they invoke, Nelson’s works are layered. From a distance, their lively forms — rabbits, plants and coyote men suggestive of indigenous imagery — appear to mock the staid stick-people adorning pedestrian signs. Nelson’s works are anything but pedestrian, however. Approach closer, and additional words and images emerge from their near-burial in paint.”  By Nicholas Gerbis   Click here to read.

“Almost pictographic, they almost evoke the work of aboriginal, “primitive” or outsider artists, but they are also subtle, with faint traces of text and decorous patterns, things that might not make any literal sense but which play on subconscious associations.” Review by D. Eric Bookhardt.  Click to read.