I see my paintings as wanderings through landscape. This diptych, Awabakal Walk, is based on a recent visit to the coastal wildflower walk near Dudley. I return to this place each spring to experience the heathland in bloom and honour Country. The two-panel format emphasises the two vanishing points in order to describe the experience of moving through the landscape during the walk, as well as the concepts of ritual and return.

Dan Nelson is a Newcastle/Muloobinba-based artist whose paintings are strongly connected to the Australian landscape, particularly through colour and the quality of light. Her works are often abstractions that aim to convey the sensed experience of a particular place and moment in time.

Dan originally trained as a fine arts printmaker, and this foundation in print processes and aesthetics continues to inform her practice as a painter. She tends to work in sequences, painting on several surfaces at once. Together, the pieces form a sort of cinema of mood, weather and season. This practice stems from the repetitive, mutative nature of the printmaking process and reflects her interest in temporality – how time shapes our sense of being in the world.

Nelson has had five solo exhibitions and has participated in curated group exhibitions at the University of Newcastle Galleries, The Lock Up, Straitjacket, Newcastle Art Space Gallery, The Creator Incubator and Project Gallery 90 in Sydney. In early 2024, she was awarded Highly Commended in the Milburn Art Prize for Landscape. Her work is represented in the University of Newcastle Collection and in many private collections.