Brittany Nelson

Brittany Nelson (b. 1984, Great Falls, MT) explores 19th-century photographic chemistry techniques and science fiction to address themes of loneliness, isolation and distance in the LGBTQ community and its parallels with space exploration. She received her B.A. in Photography from Montana State University and her M.A. in Photography from the Cranbrook Academy of Art. Nelson is currently Associate Professor of Photography and Area Head of Photography at the University of Richmond (Richmond, VA).  

Nelson is the recipient of the Creative Capital Foundation Grant in Visual Arts (New York, NY) and a Theo Westenberger Foundation Grant for advancing women in the arts. Recent institutional solo exhibitions include: Le CAP - Centre d’art (Lyon, France) and Fotogalleriet (Oslo, Norway). Her work has been exhibited at Die Ecke (Santiago, Chile), Sonnenstube (Lugano, Switzerland), Bonniers Konsthall (Stockholm, Sweden), The Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (Detroit, MI), The Brooklyn Academy of Music (New York, NY), The Cranbrook Art Museum (Bloomfield Hills, MI), The Newcomb Art Museum (New Orleans, LA), Patron Gallery (Chicago, IL), Harnett Museum of Art (Richmond, VA), The International Print Center (New York, NY), among many others. Her monograph “Out Of The Everywhere” was released in 2019 by Mousse Publishing (Milan, Italy), and her sculptural book “Monuments to the Conquerors of Space” was released in 2017 and published by Small Editions (New York, NY).  

Nelson is currently an Artist in Residence with the SETI Institute (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), a 2017 artist in residence at the Headlands Center for the Arts (San Francisco, CA) and the recipient of the Fish/Pearce Award for process-based work from the Print Center (Philadelphia, PA). Her work has been featured in publications such as Art in America, Frieze, and The New Yorker.