Drawings Gallery (new window) What are the risks inherent in the expressionistic portraiture of Nelson? For one, they depict the various interior states of the artist himself through repetition and insistence, and while slouching toward a state of beatitude, they chance a maudlin, almost preening narcissism; the mark of an ambivalent criminal who can't wait to confess, who needs to be caught. Nelson seems to know that in order to make a seamless transmission of the spectrum of his moods-withdrawn, pensive, frustrated, confused, even despairing-he risks what Genet describes as, "Mythomania, a waking dream, megalomania...the words we use about someone who hasn't succeeded in correctly projecting the image he has formed of himself.