Cover | Kenton Nelson
A Long Wait (oil on canvas). Kenton Nelson’s crisp, alluring, and provocative paintings depict a symbolic, stylized world, an American dreamscape made up of trim houses, manicured yards, and swimming pools, populated by men in dapper suits and women in nipped-waist swimsuits and dresses. These idealized images, he notes, “are intentionally derived from personal experience: the soft propaganda of the advertising of my lifetime, the staging, fashion, and lighting of Hollywood movies and television, and a narration and set-up, influenced by the writers that I most admire.” Nelson was born and raised in Los Angeles and has worked out of his studio in Pasadena for more than three decades. In addition to exhibiting his paintings across the United States and in Europe, with recent shows in Vienna and Berlin, he has translated his work to the public sphere in form of mosaic murals, and has been featured several times as a cover artist for The New Yorker. This image is courtesy of Caldwell Snyder Gallery, 341 Sutter St., San Francisco, 415-392-2299, and 1328 Main St., St. Helena, 707-200-5050. www.CaldwellSnyder.com.
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