Jonathan Nelson
Profile
Born and raised in the Four Corners area of New Mexico, Jonathan, or Johnny, as he prefers, began his art experience with coloring books like many children. With no real direction to solidify his place as an artist in the world, he considered this unknown talent as a hobby. In his teenage years, he began collecting comic books and started tracing famous comic book characters, like Spiderman and the X-Men. He soon found himself inspired by comic book illustrators Jim Lee and Todd McFarlane. Elementary tracing evolved into magnificent, creative freehand drawings done only with the rudimentary pencil and pen. Yet, he still thought of art as a hobby. At this point, he used photographs for inspiration to create Realism art. Johnny enjoys working with watercolors, pen & ink, pencils/graphite, charcoal, pastels, spray paint, and acrylics and conveys his personal views as a young, Navajo man living in the city with a hip-hop twist through his art. He feels that his style may provide the influence for the next generation of artists to come.
At the age of 24, his love for art was burning and he knew to put his day job to the side and go for a lifelong goal. While attending Collins College in Tempe, AZ, he was awarded an Associates of Arts degree in Visual Communications. During this period, Redhand Apparel of Mesa spotted his talent and collaborated with him to produce detail-oriented illustrated graphics on clothing. Now everyone can wear a piece of his contemporary Native American art. In 2007, Johnny graduated from Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe, NM with a Bachelors of Fine Arts Degree in Visual Communications. Some might ponder why visual communications and not studio arts, but Johnny feels that along with his artistic ability and utilizing the ever-changing technology in computers, he will be among the new generation of Native American artists. For the past two years, Johnny has continued his graphic design career while developing his fine art. In the future, he hopes to return to graduate school to attain his Masters of Fine Art degree. He would like to become an instructor of graphic design and encourage Native American youth to believe that artistic talent, creativity, and hard work is a realistic and hopeful future. Until then, please continue to visit www.badwinds.com for new creations and updates of Jonathan Nelson.
