Nonsky-Art of Nelson Donsky

10/03/2026

This is the mural that the incredibley talented (go follow her work if you don't already) and I painted for the in December last year. Between the two of us I'd say we absolutely crushed it. It was a very quick process, we got it painted in about five days with each of us tagging in and out for us to go to our respective jobs. Add in a few more days while we edited and sent the drafts back and forth beforehand, and photography and the sealing coat once it was up.

It is named 'Cool me down' after a song from The Black Seeds, as Woodford is often quite hot and swimming is the best way to beat the heat so we wanted to remind people to swim but to also be considerate of all the precious critters in our ecosystems who live there all year round. I also got to see my first platypus last year too and they are just pure magic so I was feeling inspired to do an aquatic scene.

The hope was to create a refreshing cool feeling while looking at it, so that it would be almost as invigorating as taking a nice dip in summer is. Swimming is about the only thing that keeps me sane in summer, as I find the heat incredibly hard to think or be productive in, so some of my happiest times in summer often happen around a body of water, so consider this your reminder to go for a swim as the warm weather is almost over!

25/02/2026

'Bella Ciao'

After two years on and off painting this I am finally sick of looking at it. Working on long form paintings is strange, so much time, so many differing moods and places painted, so much improvement on my skills. I got to a point where the only way I felt I could improve it would be to paint over it and start again, that's how I knew it was finished.

Note the comet in the background, either a falling star to make a wish upon, or an asteroid come to put our human affairs into perspective. The bridge and the rivers are both highways to new places, but separate. I am reminded of the in quote in a Talking Heads song: "Where does that highway go to?"

This painting is about partings, forks in the road, about endings and new beginings. Both literal and philosophical. To that end it is dedicated to the dearly departed in all our lives, the lovers gone, and the road less travelled. The road, the life-path, the way.

11/02/2026

2025 on the Woodford site last year, painting from the dance floor to the gallery teahouse to sharing a big stage with .music and and a few thousand people behind me jumping up and down.

Painting with my community on one of my favorite festival sites in a gallery full of dear friends was quite a time. Very grateful for these moments of incredible frenetic energy to sit in defiant stillness while I paint excruciatingly slowly. Big tortoise energy 🐢

Photos by Lena

#2025

03/12/2025

Space has always held a fascination for me, the final frontier, the undiscovered country, the unfathomable, the sublime. The Earth floats like a mote of dust in the eye of an the infinite cosmos.

In this painting I wanted to honour that especially in relation to black holes, after I listened to an episode about them on with in an excellent podcast on very specific corners of the scientific world.

No information, light, radio waves; nothing can escape when it falls in. The very laws of time and space break down past the event horizon, and nothing more can be known.

Thankfully the first photos of black holes (Thankyou E.H.T!) are still a bit blurry so there was still time for me as an artist to try and take a swing at guessing what they look like, a tradition that has seen artists and scientists collaborating and disagreeing for over 100 years.

Admittedly mine has a very bright accretion disk, which is the ring of light surrounding it. I was aiming for how it would look to the naked eye, that is to say partially blinding. The parts of the accretion disk above and below are actually behind the black hole but appear where they are due to gravitational lensing, the effect strong gravity has on visible light. That is also why some of the stars appear warped around it. As the gas and dust swirl around the edge, the friction heats them to billions of degrees and causes them to emit light. Ample fodder for an impressionist painting I thought, so I made this artwork. I've used impasto to create some actual ripples in the work to reflect how reality itself ripples in the wake of the event horizon inspired by the impasto of work of the talented artist

Fun fact: at the center of each galaxy is a large black hole, the largest found is 30 to 40 times the size of our solar system. I invite you to take a moment to consider that. That is "The Sublime" at its most potent, universal scale.


 

18/09/2025

Wake up babe, new tortoise artwork just dropped:

Behold, a tasty treat for your eyeballs! This is the 'Mecha-Tortoise Mk II'
Inspired by a love of Tortoises, Gundam, and Zoids, maybe with some shades of Digimon and to a lesser degree Pokemon.

This is my dream car, someday ill be able to afford this, someday... 🥹
It's very fuel efficient, nuclear battery and all that. Plus there's lots of storage room in the shell.

Speaking of if you would like to hop on board for purchasing a large glossy die-cut sticker of this slide into my DMs ($8 each). Larger prints are easily do-able by special request, but for now this one will be a sticker exclusive.

I will eventually set up a proper online store this year, but for now reaching out directly is the only way to order online.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled doom scroll 💚 🐢

20/08/2025

From the recent Modifyre Festival. Thanks for the great shot Mark! Photo credits: Mark Treloar.

30/07/2025

16/07/2025

If you're in Brisbane/Ipswich the come to Stony Creek Brewing tomorrow night! Ill be squaring off against some contenders tomorrow night. Come cheer/vote for me! 💚