Melvin Edward Nelson called himself MEN: “Mighty Eternal Nation.” He was an electrician for a time before leaving his wife and children to settle in Oregon in 1948. In 1958 he bought 30 hectares of land in the south-east of Portland where he lived as a hermit, refusing, among other things, to wash himself. Between 1961 and 1966, he developed his “scientific” research which took shape in an abundant pictorial production. He took samples of soil and rocks from his terrain that he believed to have been modified by the frequent presence of UFOs and used these samples charged with magnetic force and energy from the universe as pigments for his paintings. The resulting images represent imaginary landscapes that reflect the immense expanse of time and space and bear witness to his astral journeys.
NELSON melvin edward
