BRIAN NISSEN - LONDON - 1939.

Began painting and drawing at an early age, and studied at the London School of Graphic Arts and at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. In 1963 traveled to Mexico where he lived and worked for the next 17 years.

In Mexico he continued drawing and painting, becoming strongly influenced by his encounter with pre-Hispanic cultures which turned out to have a defining impact on his thinking about art; not only in a formal sense but in a more general way. Although these cultures had no concept of ‘Art’ as we understand it, it played an integral part in the daily lives of everyone, coming to them as ritual enactment of a mythic sense of wonder, involved in religion, medicine, astronomy, sport, agriculture, homemaking etc. Their artifacts were seen as objects invested with special powers, operating as a kind of spiritual magnet to which the spectator addresses himself. This idea had a powerful effect on his work, and has been the undercurrent of his art ever since.

By the early 70’s he had various exhibitions in Mexico and South America, and by then the three dimensional forms that were appearing on the surface of his paintings had taken on an autonomy, becoming wall reliefs that left the support of the canvas behind. These works eventually led him into sculpture as they became more abstract, dealing with architectonic and organic forms. In the late 70’s he had exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City, The Museum of Modern Art in Buenos Aires and the Whitechapel Art Gallery in London. In 1979 he moved to New York, set up his studio and began working there.

The exhibition at the Tamayo Museum in Mexico City in 1983 was an exploration of a prose poem by Octavio Paz, The Obsidian Butterfly, a lament of an Aztec goddess over her eclipse and conquest by Christianity. The idea that ran through this exhibition was the re-invention of an ancient pictorial form into the Language of contemporary art, and discovering the kinds of hidden affinities that link them. The show included relief paintings, sculpture, graphics, and a dance/performance he choreographed as an integral part of the exhibit. He had also published a conjectured codex ‘Itzpapalotl, based on the poem that accompanied the other works. Octavio Paz’s observation on first visiting the show was - ‘Rather than an exhibition of works of art, the exhibition itself was the work of art’ - . This exhibition marked another development in his working method, and was the first large scale development of a theme in different media and materials that he was later to continue in the series Atlantis, Cacaxtla, Chinampas, and Limulus.

In 1980 he was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship. By the mid 80’s he had become fully involved with sculpture, - mostly in bronze - working on relief painting, collage and sculpture simultaneously. He gave a series of lectures on pre-hispanic art at the Cooper Union, New York, and then in 1987 had a exhibition at the Carpenter center at Harvard University.

In 1992 he was invited to participate in the quincenteniel celebrations of the Encounter with America by the Ministry of Culture of Catalonia with an exhibition in Barcelona. He chose the theme of Atlantis, with the idea of making conjectured artifacts linking America and Europe, based on Plato’s myth of the lost continent - Atlantis being the second explanation of America sent back to Spain after the discovery, while the first had suggested that they had discovered Eden, or Paradise. In the first two rooms of the exhibition there were a series of large maritime wall maps, and an Atlas/Poem made by collaging real maps and inventing the texts, marking and citations. These were accompanied by the faint sounds of whale song which ould also be heard throughout the exhibition which included a

series of relief paintings - mixed media works made from wood bark, plaster, epoxy and acrylics, evoking floating ruins, sea beds and drifting debris. The sculptures were made in the form of volcanoes as erupting pyramids and also other ritual pieces that looked as if they had been dredged up from the sea floor
By 1993 he was working on a number of collage cut-outs, drawing with scissors as it were. The series Cacaxtla was shown at the Cooper Union in New York. He spent the winters of 1993/4/5/6 working on ceramic sculptures in Mexico, as a change from working in bronze. The immediacy and spontaneity inherent in the medium opened up new fields and possibilities , leading to the first Chinampa sculptures. These pieces were based on the idea of the floating gardens on the lake of Xochimilco, where the Aztecs had invented a novel system of agriculture that provided for the city of Mexico.

In 1998 he exhibited the Chinampas at the Museo del Barrio in New York. The sculptures of bronze, ceramic and wood were set on reflecting bases - as if on water – while the wall pieces - painted collages - were like aerial views of the islands. The idea of the Chinampas - constructed islands, floating orchards - seemed in an odd way to relate to certain basic premises of Action Painting in which the surface of the painting is conceived as an area or arena on which the act of painting takes place. The paint itself becomes the testimony of what has happened - a manifestation of the event. Evidence of a poetic act. The edges of the canvas define the area of the action, circumscribed like an island. The Chinampas of Xochimilco are also a specific area in which an event takes place - in this case, agriculture. Things are laid out and cultivated. Some times a small temple or altar is erected. In these sculptures he used the format of the man-made islands; but in this case what happens on them is an evocation of forms, spaces, shapes - some organic: pods, plants, seeds, roots - others more architectonic – ramps, paths, mounds, enclosures. The sculptures are, in a sense, landscapes. But they are enclosed landscapes. These sculpture/islands are set on bases of dark mirror. Floating reflections. The memory of the water surrounds a sculptural event.

In 1996 his book of drawings, ‘Voluptuario’ was published in New York, with an introductory essay by Carlos Fuentes.

Among recent works are a series of bronzes and collages Limulus, based on certain forms of the Horse Shoe Crab. This rather bizarre animal - called a living fossil - is only found on the coast of New England and had long fascinated him. Its simple exterior helmet shape encloses the baroque symmetry inside, and he was attracted to developing these contained forms with the idea of inside/outside as a sculptural space; the one invoking the other.

2004/ 2005. Nissen worked on the sculptural mural ‘The Red Sea’ which occupies a wall measuring 120x15 ft. Iit has a hidden skylight above it, bathing it in light. The great sweepi of its shapes evoke the biblical description of the parting of thr Red Sea. This rhythm of forms open out in a huge surge from a central U- shaped symbol representing the passageway. The mural comes to light as a play of light and shadow, changing its form and mood as the day progresses and as the light shifts upon it, animating the shapes and transforming their flow. The Centro Maguen David is a new religious and community center in Mexico City.