Jonathan Nelson studied Fine Art at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, and Production for Radio at Chicago's Columbia College. He received his BA from the University of Minnesota, where he majored in Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature and minored in Studio Art, while working closely with the production department at Radio K, where he served as Production Director for several years. His work as artist, curator and producer has focused almost exclusively on collage, with forays into radio, visual art, writing and installation. He has created multiple works of audio and visual collage, utilizing source materials found in both natural and media environments. His work explores not only issues of identity, originality and the concept of individual thought, but also the process of memory and free-association, dreaming and the stream of conscious.

Nelson is also a curator specializing in collage, assemblage and mixed media. His nationally syndicated radio program (Some Assembly Required) is a weekly radio art show, featuring the talents of audio artists who appropriate sounds from their media environments. Since its inception in 1999, Nelson has produced over two dozen artist features, interviewing everyone from John Oswald and The Evolution Control Committee, to Christian Marclay and DJ Spooky. While Some Assembly Required is focused exclusively on audio art, Nelson's Festival of Appropriation focuses on the visual. This recurring exhibition has featured local, national and international artists working with a variety of approaches to creative appropriation, since 1999. In addition to these ongoing roles, Nelson has assisted in producing large-scale projects in collaboration with the Sound Unseen film and music festival, in concert with the Walker Art Center and has personally presented performances by sound collage artists at venues such as Theatre de la Jeune Lune, The Rogue Buddha Gallery and The Triple Rock Social Club.

His debut sound collage release (Escape Mechanism), was reviewed in over a dozen publications and profiled in WIRE magazine (UK) and The City Pages (Minneapolis), which picked Escape Mechanism as one of its "Picked to Click" artists (1999). The release also charted on CMJ's Top 200 that year. Following this release, Nelson formed a performance group, playing at venues such as The Walker Art Center, The Weisman Art Museum and The First Avenue Mainroom, and released a CD of recordings from these public performances (2004). He has also presented sound installations at venues such as The Soap Factory (Minneapolis, MN) and The Blue Theater (Austin, TX), and collaborated with popular sound collage artists Steev Hise, the Tape-beatles and Wobbly, releasing a collection of material on the Dutch label, Staalplaat, in 2002.

In 2004, Nelson started a record label (Recombinations), with the goal of promoting collage work by audio artists. In 2005, his collaboration with Adam Sultan and (Fulbright Scholar and Jerome Fellowship recipient) Abi Basch, on her daring and original play, Fear of a Fuhrer, resulted in an Austin Critic's Table Award for Outstanding Original Score. 2007 saw the debut of his first all Sound Art show at Rosalux Gallery (Minneapolis, MN) and a brand new sound installation at the Rochester Art Center (Rochester, MN).

For more information about Jonathan Nelson, visit his artist's page at mnartists.org, and the Post Consumer Productions website, at: www.PostConsumerProductions.com