DONA NELSON: THE INDIVIDUALISM OF DONA NELSON

CANADA is excited to announce The Individualism of Dona Nelson, presented in collaboration with Thomas Erben Gallery.

January 8 - February 14, 2026

The show’s title is borrowed from The Individualism of Gil Evans, the 1964 album by the jazz pianist and arranger, considered to be one of his best. Nelson treats each individual painting as a journey, a story with unique properties. Every facet of the paintings is considered, especially the material choices; stretcher bars, the weave of the canvas, the scale and proportions, color, the terms of display and how paint is applied.

The works define themselves through the act of making. They start with drawing. Strips of cheesecloth soaked with acrylic medium are carefully applied or flung onto raw canvas, which dry into rigid dams that corral thinned acrylic that puddles and soaks into the weave and often through to the reverse side of the face-up canvases. When the colors dry, the cheesecloth is pulled off to reveal frozen rivulets, glassy sheets of color or patches of raw canvas.

The layers of paint, either soft flows or Press Release shattered slabs, create depth of feeling when placed on top of or next to one another. The paintings suggest rock strata and geology, which is time made visible.

The show features several of her ontologically challenging freestanding double-sided works, which explore aspects of painting that are traditionally off limits to viewers. We see the backs of the paintings, exposing supports and staples, granting the works a sculptural presence in the physical world. Nelson designed stands that hold the paintings in the center of the gallery and a system of pipes that fuse them to and away from the walls. The effect is to make the paintings read like screens, and to see the entirety of the paintings they must be seen from all sides.