Andrew Lincoln Nelson is a contemporary artist from the United States who produces highly detailed semi-realistic and surrealistic graphite drawings of futuristic or exobiological landscapes. He has a background in academic research, robotics and fine art. His work has been shown at Biosphere 2, Manifest Drawing Gallery, and the University of Arizona and was the subject of a National Arts Program Spotlight. His art has also been included in juried publications and on-line venues, receiving best-in-show in several recent shows. He also does occasional commission work, recently including a book cover illustration (The Book of Stranger Vol. 2) and several music score cover illustrations (The Butterfly and the Ocelot by composer A. M. Guzzo).
Robot 21, The Living Machines
Robot 21, The Living Machines
Works on Paper
This drawing was show at the NAP 2013 "On Our Own Time" Exhibition at the University of Arizona. The drawing was completed in 2011 and is part of my series called The Living Machines. These works depict machine creatures living in futuristic landscapes.
Robot 25, The Living Machines
Robot 25, The Living Machines
Works on Paper
This is a Graphite drawing completed in 2013. It is part of my series entitled "The Living Machines" . These drawings depict autonomous living machine-like creatures. This particular drawing explores the issue of mobility, plant nature and animal nature. Here, the machine entity is either woven into a plantlike form, or is somehow part of the plant-like form.
Shapes and Squiggles 8
Shapes and Squiggles 8
Works on Paper
This is a mixed media painting done on paper which has been laminated to thin plywood and vanished. The work combines organic patterns with geometric abstract forms.
Shapes and Squiggles 6
Shapes and Squiggles 6
Works on Paper
This abstract work combines drawing, water-wash pastel, ink and watercolor with opaque latex paint overlay. The work is done on paper and is not varnished. The picture explores issues of scale in organic patterns and interaction of shape at a more abstract level.
Shapes and Squiggles 5
Shapes and Squiggles 5
Works on Paper
This abstract work, completed in 2014 combines drawing, water-wash pastel, ink and watercolor with opaque latex paint overlay. The work is done on paper and is not varnished. The picture explores issues of scale in organic patterns and interaction of shape at a more abstract level. Here, the larger of the two opaque shapes might represent a mother, host, or predator to the smaller. The exact nature of the relationship is not made clear, as might be the case if one were to peer briefly into a microscope to observe various unclassified forms.
Robot 18, The Living Machines
Robot 18, The Living Machines
Works on Paper
Complete in 2008, this drawing was the first fully rendered work in the Living Machines series. The name "Robot" has a legacy in my naming conventions, but the machine creature is closer to an evolving life form or living agent than a traditional robot.
Robot 27, The Living Machines
Robot 27, The Living Machines
Works on Paper
This small drawing (8 by 10) is a recent addition to the in the Living Machine Series. The creature depicted is more fully organic than those shown in previous series drawings. There is still a somewhat machine-like element implied by the squares covering the orb-like protrusions of the creature.
Robot 19, The Living Machines
Robot 19, The Living Machines
Works on Paper
The drawing depicts a sessile plant-like form with some machine parts. In addition, a nest and small robot are shown. The work explores categorization concepts by blending machine, plant and animal aspects, and will serve as a study for a new drawing to be include in the Living Machine series.
Robot 28
Robot 28
Works on Paper
This graphite drawing depicts a machine-creature consisting of a spherical cage filled with twisted pipes and machine detritus. The work was begun in 2014 and completed in 2015. As with several other drawings in this series (“The Living Machines”), thematic elements from natural and artificial evolution are explored in the work. Background elements are taken from the Santa Rita mountain range south of Tucson Arizona and East of I-19. The main subject of the drawing, the spheroid machine-creature in the foreground, might have a vegetative intelligence rather than a high-level human-like form of intelligence. It is shown interacting with its surroundings, grazing on sticks or perhaps doing some other vegetative activity. This creature is somewhat less machine-like than those depicted in other drawings in this series, with no explicit “feet” and an amorphous character.
Robot 29: Plantimal 1
Robot 29: Plantimal 1
Works on Paper
This graphite drawing is part of a series (The Living Machines) that depicts life as it might be on other worlds or on an Earth of the distant future. In particular, the series explores post technological scenarios in which a fusion between which organic life and feral technology has occurred. This drawing addresses the concepts of Lamarckian evolution and mimetic self-construction. The central focus of the work is a largely biological entity, with no explicit machine elements. This entity has both plant-like and animal-like components, and might fancifully be called a Plantimal. The creature is shown investigating its surroundings, which contain technological and machine detritus. Here, the creature has taken on some aspects of the machine remnants in its environment. The background is a composite of elements taken from the Superstition Mountains northeast of Phoenix, Arizona and eroded volcanic cores from various locations. “Robot 29” is followed in the Living Machine series by “Robot 30”, which continues the theme of the Plantimals.
Robot 30: Plantimal 2
Robot 30: Plantimal 2
Works on Paper
This is one of the most visually direct drawings in the “Living Machine” series. As with other works in this series, this drawing explores themes of mimetic evolution, Lamarckian evolution and self-construction. A large organic spheroid creature (a “Plantimal”) mimics the form of a smaller more machine-like creature which it is carrying. The background is taken largely from a view of low mountains north of Interstate 8 near the Arizona-California border.
Phytoborg 2: The Living Machines: Surreal Evolution
Phytoborg 2: The Living Machines: Surreal Evolution
Works on Paper
The Phytoborg series is a subseries of the Living Machines. A “Phytoborg” is a vegetative lifeform that fuses machine and living plant-like elements. As with the machine-creatures in the Living Machine series, these vegetative machine-plant creatures embody visions of post-technology life or of exo-biological life. The “tree” in “Phytoborg 2” is largely organic in appearance, but includes cube-like shapes that suggest a machine or non-biological origin. The drawing is more overtly surrealistic than other drawings in this series and may serve at the genesis of a series of Surrealistic Evolution images. In a sense, “Phytoborg 2” is a departure from other works in the living machine series because there might not be any possible natural history that could account for the landscape and subject, even an alien one.
Surreal Trees 1, Robot 35
Surreal Trees 1, Robot 35
Works on Paper
Surreal Trees 1: Robot 35: "Surreal Evolution Series” Medium: Graphite on paper (Bristol Board). Original Drawing Size: 18” high by 24” wide. Framed size: 22” high by 28” long (side-to-side width) by 1” wide (depth of frame). Year of completion: 2016. Description: These surreal block-trees in this picture are similar to the Phytoborgs in the Living Machines series of drawings. A “Phytoborg” is a vegetative lifeform that fuses machine and living plant-like elements. In this work though, the ground and sky are un-earthlike and perhaps on a microscale. This is the most surreal work of mine to date.
Plantimal 3: The Living Machines: Surreal Evolution
Plantimal 3: The Living Machines: Surreal Evolution
Works on Paper
Phytoborg 3, Robot 33: “Surreal Evolution Series” Medium: Graphite on paper (bright vellum). Original Drawing Size: 18” high by 24” wide. Framed size: 22” high by 28” long (side-to-side width) by 1” wide (depth of frame). Year of completion: 2016. Showings: 2017 Art of Planetary Science juried show held at the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Science Lab (LPL). Description: Phytoborg 3 is part of a series of drawings (The Living Machines) that depict astrobiologyical landscapes. A “Phytoborg” is a vegetative lifeform that fuses machine and living plant-like elements. These vegetative machine-plants might be post-technology life or exo-biological forms of life. The spheroid “tree” in “Phytoborg 3” is organic in appearance, but is covered by square shapes that suggest a machine or non-biological origin. The surrounding ground in the drawing is covered by spongy fungus-like mounds that continue toward the horizon. These might represent some alien mono-culture landscape, but the mounds have slightly different morphologies.
Plantimal 4: Surreal Evolution Series
Plantimal 4: Surreal Evolution Series
Works on Paper
Robot 34/Plantimal 4: “The Living Machines Series/Surreal Evolution Series”. Medium: Graphite on paper (bright vellum). Original Drawing Size: 18” high by 24” wide. Framed size: 22” high by 28” long (side-to-side width) by 1” wide (depth of frame). Year of completion: 2016. Showings: 2017 Art of Planetary Science juried show held at the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Science Lab (LPL). Description: This drawing explores astrobiology and exobiology from a somewhat surrealistic point of view. Life on other worlds or on Earth in the distant future may exploit different evolutionary and developmental strategies than those in evidence on Earth now. The central focus of the work, a large organic spheroid creature, is a mainly biological entity, but has cube-like trees growing on its back. These cubes may have had a distant technological origin, or might represent some kind of mimetic developmental process. This creature in this drawing has both plant-like and animal-like components, thus the label “Plantimal”. The background is taken from a view of hills and mountains just south of Kitt Peak in Arizona.
Osteo Borg 1
Osteo Borg 1
Works on Paper
What would it be like to look upon an utterly non-human unearthly entity? How would a landscape feel if it were occupied by something that was truly not us? Is there some common nature shared by all possible forms of life, even those that might never come to pass?
Osteo Borg 1 was included in Manifest's international drawing annual 13 exhibition-in-print at http://www.manifestgallery.org/nda/inda13/
Osteo Borg 1
Osteo Borg 1
Works on Paper
Osteo Borg 1, 18x24” Graphite Bristol Board, 2017.
What would it be like to look upon an utterly non-human unearthly entity? How would a landscape feel if it were occupied by something that was truly not us? Is there some common nature shared by all possible forms of life, even those that might never come to pass? Perhaps nature will fuse biology and feral technology into future ecosystems that bear only the slightest hint of their anthropoid origins
Surreal Tree 2
Surreal Tree 2
Works on Paper
This graphite drawing was completed in 2017 and is part of a series of surreal evolution illustrations. The work depicts a tree-like form with rectangular toroids made of a bony or ossified material. The tree-form is skeletal and may or may not be alive. Surrealism and academic realism are combined in this work to create an image of a physically possible form, but one that contains elements that are un-natural in some sense.
Phyto-Ost 2 (Robot 40)
Phyto-Ost 2 (Robot 40)
Works on Paper
How would a landscape feel if it were occupied by something not made by or for humans, something existing without regard to our sentiments? The graphite drawing Phyto Ost 2 combines concepts from exobiology, artificial evolution, technology-infused ecosystems and mathematics to create an unearthly or distant-future plant-like form situated in an otherwise lifeless landscape. The drawing is part of a series of hand-drawn images that explore non-anthropoid and feral-technology-infused entities and ecosystems. A further goal of these works is to stimulate emotions or experiences associated with viewing objects of unknown origin, with no name, and with no overtly human connection. Phyto Ost 2 also contains elements of surrealism, photo-realism, and landscape rendering and juxtaposes the concepts of subject and background by including a high level of detail throughout the rendering.
Osteoborg 2 (Robot 41)
Osteoborg 2 (Robot 41)
Works on Paper
The graphite drawing “Osteoborg 2”, 2018, is part of a series of renderings of non-anthropomorphic organisms and future landscapes. This work explores speculative theories of exobiology and the fusion of feral technologies with biological ecosystems. The aspect of water implies reflection, alterations introduced by surface variations, and invisible depth, perhaps reflecting commonalities among all possible forms of life. Is there perhaps something we feel and share at a visceral level? When something catches your eye, does that mean you share affinity with it?
Phyto Ost 3 (R42)
Phyto Ost 3 (R42)
Works on Paper
“Phyto Ost 3” is a quasi-surrealistic rendering of three tree-like forms growing out of an arid dried-mud playa. The trees have orb-like crowns composed of filamentous boney cubes, hence the name Phyto Ost or Bone Plant. The cube-like shape of the bones might indicate that they have an unnatural origin. These trees might be alive or they might be only skeletons of wood and bone, the last traces of life on an aging planet. The drawing was done by hand, requiring about 6 weeks of drawing time.
Osteoborg 3 (Robot 43)
Osteoborg 3 (Robot 43)
Works on Paper
An Osteoborg is a sort of bone-robot, a truly surreal machine. The upper portion of this creature is an irregular mass of cubes composed of a bone-like material. The lower portion is a conglomeration of robot or zooborg (animal-machine) parts. This creature must have had machine ancestors but now is self-sustaining and integrated into its desert environment. The biological organisms that created the technologies that this life form now uses have been extinct for eons. If the landscape shown here is of a distant-future Earth, then it would appear that Gaia has taken what she needs from us for her great work of creation, and then washed us away with her great eraser, time.
This drawing was done entirely by hand with graphite on Bristol board (as with all my work). Calculations of transforms and planar projections were done by hand or using slide rules and/or various other archaic analog techniques.
Anthozoaborg 1 (R45)
Anthozoaborg 1 (R45)
Works on Paper
An Anthozoaborg is a machine colony-organism hybrid, something like a coral reef cyborg. The detailed drawing entitled “Anthozoaborg 1” depicts one such creature. This particular one is roaming the desert in an impossible future New Mexico. It has three large head-like group-communities and a set of shared bio and mecha motility flanges (legs). The creature has partially ensconced itself in the branches of a dead and bark-less tree. As in other works in this series, the creature and environment depicted could perhaps be physically consistent in some sense. The subject, though, does not seem to have a possible origin: there is no real possibility that this creature could come to exist in a natural way. If it were to pop into existence somehow, however, it might persist for a while before succumbing to our regimented reality.
OsteoRhizophor (Robot 46)
OsteoRhizophor (Robot 46)
Works on Paper
This drawing was completed in May 2020. Part of a series entitled Surreal Trees, an Osteo-Rhizophor is a "Bone Mangrove". In the same vein as Osteoborgs and Phytoborgs, this Osteo-Rhizophor might be an example of exobiology, or might exist on Earth in the very distant future. This drawing contains several surreal elements but does not fit completely into the surreal rubric. There are elements of scale incongruity and overall strangeness, but the tree’s form remains a realizable 3-dimensional shape. The work also includes a high degree of detail in the water, mountains, and reflections so that the imposing main subject is somewhat counterbalanced in focus. This austere and irreal future vision is intended to convey distance in time, space, and kinship: this orb-like mangrove tree with boney tube-like shell parts might have come from familiar plants, but the relationship is distant.
The drawing was done entirely by hand with graphite on Bristol board (as with all my work). Calculations of transforms and planar projections were done by hand or using slide rules and/or various other analog techniques.
Phytotessellost Robot 47
Phytotessellost Robot 47
Works on Paper
Phytotessellost means geometric plant bone or tree bone. This graphite drawing shows a three-lobed tree-like form with the lobes being composed of or tiled with regular triangles, squares, pentagons and hexagons. Trees such as these might grow in the distant future when life on Earth is no longer easily categorized into well-defined species. Life forms with multiple origins might someday be able to fuse into single entities. The tree in this drawing contains geometric, bone-like and plant-like components and perhaps has been influenced by technology. As with other recent drawings in this series, the work borders on the surrealistic.