Karel Nel (b. 1955)
Design For Tapestry
mixed media on paper
BIOGRAPHY
Karel Nel is an artist, curator and scholar, known for his sophisticated integration of art and science. He was born in Pietermaritzburg and began his career studying Fine Art at the University of the Witwatersrand and St Martins School of Art in London. In the late 1980s, he received a Fulbright placement to the University of California at Berkeley, where he continued his investigation into contemporary physics.
Nel uses materials like volcanic glass and baobab bark to create works that are both conceptually rich and materially unique. His work is characterised by the pursuit of connectedness, exploring, as Esmé Berman writes, the ‘incandescent moment when we are aware of the interlinkedness of everything’.
For Nel, the artist is a conduit for intellectual and intuitive information from the outside world, from nuclear physics to esoteric mysticism, which combine with sensory and aesthetic qualities to transcend any particular context.
Since 2004, he has served as the resident artist with the COSMOS astronomical project, collaborating with global scientists to explore universal phenomena.
Until 2017, he was an Associate Professor at Wits University and, in 2018, became Senior Advising Curator at the Norval Foundation in Cape Town, where he curates major exhibitions featuring influential South African and international artists.
Nel’s work is part of prominent collections worldwide, including the Iziko South African National Gallery, the Smithsonian Institute National Museum of African Art, the Met and the British Museum.