Hard Copy

Hard Copy is on view February 1st, 2025 through March 8th, 2025.
Opening reception from 3:00 to 6:00pm on Saturday, February 8th.

Best Western is pleased to announce Hard Copy, an installation of sculptures and photography by Hilary Nelson made during their winter residency.

Nelson’s reflection on their residency:

Recently, my focus within my practice has been on ways that form can indicate time. I have felt a pull towards being able to suggest that a sculpture has existed in, or been built, or made, or born of a certain time, place, or space by the shape it takes. What might that do to my role as the maker? I am looking at forms such as stalactites, which are built up around a hollow tube the diameter of a drop of water, or saguaro cactus, which won’t put out an arm until they are over 50 years old. I am thinking about ways that--as a queer person who came out in their 30s--my shape, my form, will continue to shift and become more true with age and acceptance. The idea of a copy or of doubling or mirroring started to develop in the space. Placing pieces in front of their own photo, making an indoor partner to the window awning, or a hanging ode to the ceiling heater felt like compulsions. Hard Copy suggests ideas of impermanence and preservation: a set of opposites. A hard copy promises to make something real, but the things I make are rarely static. Opposites run rampant in my work. I continually find myself between material and form, image and object, fast and slow, complex and simple, familiar and alien. Vibrating between these things, existing where things are uncertain or precarious. Hard Copy refers to an old technology, something that is now without teleology. It's shape feels made by a time now gone.

I came into the space with a collection of digitally printed images from recent work, as well as a stack of paper screen-printed to look like stone that I brought with me from Iowa when I moved three years ago. Both of these materials presented themselves as flat surfaces that meagerly fought their flatness and that tried to convey some sense of time frozen. I also had materials that I worked with repeatedly this last year--parts that built different pieces, only to be broken down and remade anew. I often make and store work outside, leaving forms made of paper or cardboard or thin plastic to be weathered beyond integrity. This loving neglect gives an age to my materials that feels personal.

Hilary Nelson (she/they) received an MFA from the University of Iowa School of Art and Art History. She has had recent solo exhibitions at Public Space One (Iowa City, IA) and The Class of 1925 Gallery at The University of Wisconsin (Madison, WI) and has been included in recent group exhibitions at Best Western (Santa Fe, NM), SOIL Gallery (Seattle, WA), United Colors (Kansas City, KS), Taos Abstract Artist Collective (Taos, NM), Public Space One (Iowa City, IA), Collar Works (Troy, NY), Underground Flower & Rhizome Parking Garage (online), GHOST (online), and The Every Woman Biennial (Los Angeles, CA). In 2019 Nelson was a resident at Yaddo and a resident and recipient of an artist grant at The Vermont Studio Center. Also in 2019, they were given access to the collections at The Museum of International Folk Art (Santa Fe, NM) for extended research. From 2018-2021 they were Gallery Director and Curator for The Times Club Gallery (Iowa City, IA). In 2022 Nelson was an artist in residence at La Wayaka Current Desert 23º (Atacama Desert, Chile), and in 2023 she was an artist in residence at Buinho Residency (Messejana, Portugal) and at High Desert Test Sites (Joshua Tree, CA). In 2024 they were a resident at Fish Factory Creative Centre (Stöðvarfjörður, Iceland). Nelson is an Assistant Professor at Maharishi International University. 

Hard Copy is on view February 1st, 2025 through March 8th, 2025. Opening reception from 3:00 to 6:00pm on Saturday, February 8th.

Best Western would like to thank Hilary Nelson for their trust and collaboration in the making of Hard Copy. This project is supported by the Fulcrum Fund, a grant program of 516 ARTS made possible by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the Meow Wolf Fouuundation.

Best Western hours are Saturdays from 1pm to 4pm and otherwise open by appointment for the run of the exhibition. Please contact Shane Tolbert & Jamie Sterling Pitt by email at office@westernbest.org with questions or to schedule an appointment.