Champion Of The Cheerleader: Joe Heaps Nelson
9 Comments Published by Alex January 30th, 2007 in Great Men, Sports. Share This
Without question, my favorite thing about football is the cheerleaders. I can’t watch more than fifteen minutes of a ball game on television, but I can watch cheerleaders jump and wiggle and form human pyramids for hours. The energy is infectious, the enthusiasm is amusing, and the acrobatics involved in most of the aerial maneuvers are nothing short of stunning. There’s a wholesome, fresh-scrubbed goodness attached to the average American’s marvel of and lust for cheerleaders. We don’t feel perverse for being entranced by them. Or maybe we should. The question is out there, frequently asked yet rarely explored.
Thus, it’s no small wonder why my favorite New York City artist is Joe Heaps Nelson.
Let me try to analyze his work after the jump.
I know little more about art than I do about football, but here’s my take on his style:
Nelson’s approach has a flatness that borders on cartoonish at times, which affords the viewer a detached position to his subject. Certain subject aspects (faces, body parts, etc) initially suggest that he doesn’t know how to harness a sense of realism, but further exposure soon reveals that he leaves these features deliberately distorted, or even unfinished, which subconsciously lends a sense of the creepy. His sensitivity to light and finding the stillness in motion is tremendous. Frozen cheerleaders hang in space, fixed in moments of triumph and sheer pep. He is able to inspire the wanton lust of the voyeur while simultaneously capturing the unspoiled innocence of the nubile young girls, leaving us with a sense of, for lack of a better way to express it, relaxed unease. It’s non-confrontational but leaves you subject to your own criteria. It’s a nifty trick.
Click here for my perennial favorite from his extensive body of work.
He also likes painting other stuff, like woolly mammoths, and bulldogs. (I bet we could commission a portrait of Porter quite easily, Joel.)
9 Responses to “Champion Of The Cheerleader: Joe Heaps Nelson”
- 1 Pingback on Apr 5th, 2007 at 12:37 pm
I’ve known Joe Heaps Nelson for 12 years and watched the development of this series. It rocks. I’d like to see them all shown in one place.
Joe’s stuff rocks! He’s a most excellent artist.
His work should reach everyone on some level. He creates such a tour of color and action, that it always allows for something new everytime you view his images.
This just in from Heaps:
“This is a note to let you know I have a bulldog painting in a benefit
auction.
The Silent Auction will be held tomorrow and Thursday, but it ends
Thursday at 8 and there will be a reception Thursday, February 1, from
6 to 8.
It’s at I-20 Gallery, 529 West 20th Street, 11th floor. (NYC)
The proceeds will benefit the Little Red School House and Elisabeth
Irwin High School Tuition Assistance Program.
There are about 100 artists donating work, including some big names
like Francesco Clemente, Leon Golub, Brice Marden, Marilyn Minter,
Shirin Neshat, Robin Tewes, John Waters, Richard Sigmund, and many
more.
Hope to see you there!”
Here’s a link to the bulldog painting:
Bulldog
Heaps is not AN American artist…
Heaps is THE American Artist.
I have shown Joe Heap’s work and think he deserves much much broader recognition. It is powerful Stuff. Highly original and unforgettable. And it just keeps coming. if the NYC art commercial art market wasn’t just another fashion boutique, Joe would be at the top of the heap. His time is going to come. pjk, artist writer malcontent
a few of my favorites…
grumpy face (bulldog), bear bryant, grandpap, corn dog love, robinson vs. gavilan, gremlins, baby rhino, grillin on the patio, and prob my favorite…eliesn.
i love the surreal, twisted take on the world. mad props.
what a “heap” of shit