Karel Nel – Close and Far is based on a survey exhibition at the Wits Art Museum, Johannesburg, of four decades of his work. The book explores Nel’s wide-ranging interests and engagement with the role of drawing as a discipline, as a form of notation for exploring thought and consciousness in interpreting self, the world and the universe at large.

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Written by Elizabeth Burroughs, the book analyses a range of works from the early 1980s to the present day, based on extensive conversations with Nel, with an introduction by art historian, Professor Federico Freschi.