Levi Nelson

TSF 2017 & 2018 Visual Artist

Levi Nelson is from the Lil’wat Nation located in Mount Currie BC. He is currently in his third year at Emily Carr University working towards a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a focus on painting. Within his art practice he is exploring traditional North West Coast shape & form-line and ancestral motifs, like Lil’wat pictographs, fusing them with contemporary design and colour. His interest lies in exploring Aboriginal culture within the context of contemporary Western society.

His work, Cultural Fragments 2017 and Inter-Tribal Diptych 2017, expresses his current view on contemporary First Nations Art. He is interested in merging the age-old tradition of North West Coast shapes and Interior Rock Paintings with bright colours and unconventional compositions to communicate both the plight and successes of Aboriginal people today. Nelson passionately explains: “the combination of traditional elements with abstract form and colour, for me, represents in metaphor the survival and continued growth of Aboriginal Peoples thriving in today’s Western Society; with one hand on traditional values and teachings and the other navigating and sustaining the success of a proud people who have survived genocide, assimilation, political strife, and stigma. The pieces of us that were shattered are now being put back together, creating a strong and vibrant future for generations to come.”

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