The exhibition documents — in the words of the artist — "the knowledge that I have gained from a year of study of the form embodied in this personal, social, architectural, and communal phenomena of Christmas lights on Californians’ homes.
It began with a drive to look at Christmas lights. “I love suburban California houses with Christmas lights… I can feel excited, like a child, looking at the houses in my old neighborhoods all lit up. I can feel the joy that people have… It is the only time where conservative tract homes have a life and let loose.”
Nielsen photographed the houses and made a small book to send as a Christmas greeting.
Still focused on the houses, he “made cardboard models in a creative frenzy.” There was only one visible facade of each house, “so the rest of the model was an architectural assumption of each suburban home.”
He was “so enthralled with the cardboard models, I photographed them in a similar manner to the original houses, dead on.” Another book ensued.
In the next phase, he began to draw the cardboard houses directly. “I focused on detail and the shadow that the bizarre and familiar objects created.”
Then "I began to draw the cardboard houses from the images I had photographed.
“Returning full circle to the original book, I began to draw the suburban houses from the original photographs.”
Eventually he moved " back and forth between drawing the houses from the original photos to drawing the cardboard houses from their images.
The drawings in the exhibition are selected from each stage of Nielsen’s process.
Chester Nielsen graduated from Rice University with a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture degree, and after that, a Bachelor of Architecture degree. He studied and worked in Houston, Texas and Paris, France. He showed at ART 101 in 2009. Nielsen, a California-born artist and architect, lives and works in New York.
The opening reception is on Friday January 22, from 7 to 9 pm
