In 2010, while strolling through a snowy landscape in Ghent, Belgium, Catherine Nelson, a visual artist based in Sydney, decided that she wanted to capture the feeling of the entire walk in a single image. “I wanted my work to tell a lot of stories, not just one moment, but the passing of time,” she said. Nelson’s images of “floating worlds” are inspired in part by the landscape paintings of Pieter Bruegel, as well as by the work she did as a visual-effects artist for fantastical Hollywood films, including “Moulin Rouge” and “Harry Potter: The Prisoner of Azkaban.”
Nelson has photographed scenes in China; the Danube Delta, in Romania; California; Belgium; and Australia. Each image is actually a collage of hundreds of photographs of the same landscape. For the Danube series, Nelson spent five days on a boat, photographing distant trees, nearby trees, plants, etc.—essentially pointing the camera everywhere. In “Monk’s Garden,” shot at the monastery around the corner from her home, Nelson set out to create a poetic image that would capture the spiritual quality of the place.
The images in Nelson’s series “Future Memories” reflect the fragility of the world. “If we don’t care for nature, this might be a memory in the future,” she said.
Photographs by Catherine Nelson. Courtesy of Julie Saul Gallery, New York.
