‘Untitled (2 hour exposure, August 24, 2007)’ charcoal dust on Rives BFK, 41.5”x29.5”

‘Palisade Head’ pigment ink print, 65”x74”

I think I will do nothing for a long time but listen,
And accrue what I hear into myself….and let sounds contribute
Toward me.

I hear the bravuras of birds….the bustle of growing wheat….

Leaves of Grass, The First Edition 1855
Walt Whitman



When chatting recently with Scott Nedrelow about his work, passages of Walt Whitman’s epic Leaves of Grass kept coming to mind. But, instead of assuming the mantle of listener as Whitman did, although I am sure he does that too, Nedrelow assumes the mantle of observer, an equally silent art. He observes Nature in its myriad of forms, unaggressively accepting what she offers up and then transforms it into photographs and works on paper.

For his large scale, multiple-panel Palisade Head, a pigment ink-print, Nedrelow employed a flat bed scanner to capture a piece of Minnesota’s North Shore terrain. Complex, dense and beautiful, the image reveals an intricate, high resolution overlay of rock, earth and plants that suggests an aerial map of some rugged, primeval place. Printed edge-to-edge with all areas of the image equally exposed and in focus, the expansive work evokes notions of infinity or the sublime in a way that recalls the works of Abstract Expressionist artists.

In his untitled works on paper, Nedrelow again leaves Nature in control. Made in Ely, MN, where the artist lived for more than two years before returning to the Twin Cities in 2007, the works are the outcome of a slow and natural process. Created by applying a fine charcoal dust to paper, which is then fixed, the sheets of paper are then placed outdoors at night and illuminated by a single light source. As moths and nocturnal insects are attracted to the light, they leave their random imprint, a ghostly dance upon the paper’s surface. After one to two hours, the marks begin to reveal the position and scope of the light source above the paper, the area where more dust has been removed. As ethereal and intangible as Palisade Head is visually compact, these works record very specific moments; they are documents of the passage of time. For Nedrelow, his unique visual renderings are about the primal connection we have to light and the “fragile felt presence” of light as a substance.

For Nedrelow, making art is often about taking the process out of the studio and into the world where discoveries are made. By allowing events to happen, he observes and makes his own the conceptual rigor in what already exists.
 

Mason Riddle is a critic based in the Twin Cities who writes about the visual arts, architecture and design.