second solo show
april 14 - may 26, 2023
THIS IS TEXT BASED ART
an Artforum ‘must see’ in Chicago
If It Has A Title It Is Art With Words
2022, oil pen, ink, crayon, and pencil, 60 x 58 in
One of my personal writing system text-abstract pieces — I call them scrawls — this painting is a complete text narrative written in layers of loose fast handwriting — in ten minutes, over ten layers, four mediums, and six implements, including brush, almost never used by the artist. The piece visually references elements of Cy Twombly, Brice Marden, and Jackson Pollock, among others, and substantively sets forth new possible art-language theories, referencing Rosalind Krauss as to viewer interpretation and meaning-making as well as deconstruction of text theories of Jaques Derrida.
If It Has A Title It Is Art With Words, 2022. Courtesy ENGAGE Projects Gallery Chicago.
God She Was A Handsome Man
2023, oil stick, charcoal, and spray paint, 60 x 52 in
One of my first pieces of a new body of work using spray paint as the final layer over oil stick to write an almost-legible language statement over prior layers of now-illegible backstory, this piece documents the thoughts and feelings of two women close to me who each used both intellect and self-compassion to make meanings for themselves, true to themselves, in response to at times withering misogyny in the context of feminism, and, relatedly, transmisia in the contexts of trans and nonbinary identity. The piece makes visual reference to elements of Christopher Wool, street art, and graffiti.
God She Was A Handsome Man, 2023. Courtesy ENGAGE Projects Gallery Chicago.
It Appears We Are
2021, oil painted text on photograph by artist, 48 x 72 in
This piece — visually referencing Ruscha and Sugimoto for reasons above — and which references text constructions not only of Holzer but also John Baldesarri, Joseph Kosuth, and Lawrence Weiner — has as its image an unfiltered photograph as I stood in water in an isolated lake in Maine where there were no humans, no human sounds, not even animal or bird sounds in that moment, just the water, almost glass which meant no wind, and the clouds did not move at all, and I took a picture, not just because I saw pure beauty, but also because if I didn’t take a picture, I would never have believed it, I would have doubted I had seen it, I would have doubted I was there at all.
It Appears We Are, 2021
New Cave Painting No. ___ (2023 Show No. 1)
2023, oil stick, charcoal, and crayon on bristol paper, 24 x 18 in
One of three experimental drawings in the show that, comprised entirely of text and setting forth a cohesive narrative, reference elements, color theories, and semiotic proto-writing theories currently being discussed by linguists and anthropologists in the context of cave paintings and petroglyphs created worldwide 30,000 to 60,000 years ago.
New Cave Painting No ____, 2023
Some Feelings And Thoughts I Have Every Second
2023, oil on canvas, 59.25 x 44 in
Starting with my first large-scale installation in New York City, in 2017, I’ve made interdisciplinary experiments to place viewers inside a bipolar 1 brain during mild manias (hypomanias). These are not about me — they’re about the connections I see. You and I, we all see the same things — it’s just that my head connects some differently, and blurs thoughts and feelings, they’re not separate, they’re one. The electricity just runs a little bit higher between some of the neurons in my brain. This piece uses over a dozen layers, in five mediums, as well as over-layers, over-painting, and typography sizing to represent qualitative and quantitative aspects of my brain in any given moment—here, about 180 seconds on January 6, 2023. Visually the work references elements of Jenny Holzer, Glenn Ligon, Ed Ruscha, Barbara Kruger, Christopher Wool, and Idris Kahn.
Some Feelings And Thoughts I Have Every Second, 2023
Untitled
2023, performance art, happening, spoken word, and oil paint on canvas, ~ 5 x 8 ft
In this performative work I articulated, with sound language, the visual text language I was placing in real time on the canvas in front of 30 viewers — who each interpreted the piece in real time by hearing, seeing, and videotaping the performance. The piece lasted 2:30 minutes during which, with sound, oil stick paint, and charcoals I set forth cohesive language elements — a narrative of relations and juxtapositions of responsibility and safety in the context of others who are reliant upon those in power and those with control to discharge their duties to keep us safe — ultimately an ambiguous word and concept in contexts both human as well as beyond humanity, such as contexts of animals and other species, and even the moon and the stars. The work references multiple performance artists in the past sixty years as well as the related art history movement known as happenings.
Untitled Performance Art and Spoken Word Happening, 2023. Courtesy ENGAGE Projects Gallery Chicago
All The Pretty Pictures Make Me Nothing Without You
2022, oil text on image 40 x 72 in
These works place painted texts over appropriated images or my photographs, visually referencing Ed Ruscha and, here, Hiroshi Sugimoto as to horizon — which I use as I see not only in overlapping words and circles-spheres, but also in movable, flexible lines. Substantively, referencing concepts of ambiguities of Jenny Holzer, and the viewer-interpretation-as-meaning-making art theories of Rosalind Krauss, this piece came of and about children, what we seem to have always sold them, all the pictures, so flawless, pictures of just who and just what they must be, just as perhaps we were sold too, or perhaps it is what we did to ourselves.
All The Pretty Pictures Make Me Nothing Without You, 2022
New Cave Painting No. ___ (2023 Show No. 2)
2022, oil stick, charcoal, and pastel on bristol paper, 20 x 18 in
One of three experimental drawings in the show that, comprised entirely of text and setting forth a cohesive narrative, reference elements, color theories, and semiotic proto-writing theories currently being discussed by linguists and anthropologists in the context of cave paintings and petroglyphs created worldwide 30,000 to 60,000 years ago.
New Cave Painting No. ___, 2022
Just Who Has The Illness Of The Mind
2023, oil on canvas, 54 x 44 in
When word-ideas started tumbling out in 2014, after a change in my psychiatric meds, I decided to end my secrecy and shame about having a severe mental illness. I stopped 10 years of hiding. In parts of my profession, the legal profession, the subsequent exploitation of societal stigma, prejudice, and fear about mental illness was staggering. The mix of shame and outside animus almost killed me. And in treatment programs I met so many people who had a severe mental illness—and who were good and decent humans, in all normative and objective ways. And since then I keep wondering, in different pieces of art, not just about individuals, but also about in collective humanity, our acts, what we do, what we don’t, as a species — a universal us — so much judgment about things not relevant — and so many rationalizations about things that are relevant, what we do, and it often leads me to the words that are this piece, which substantively references elements of Barbara Kruger and Jenny Holzer, and which visually references elements of Mel Bochner and Wool.
Just Who Has The Illness Of The Mind, 2023
New Cave Painting No. ___ (2023 Show No. 3)
2023, oil stick and charcoal on bristol paper, 21.5 x 18 in
One of three experimental drawings in the show that, comprised entirely of text and setting forth a cohesive narrative, reference elements, color theories, and semiotic proto-writing theories currently being discussed by linguists and anthropologists in the context of cave paintings and petroglyphs created worldwide 30,000 to 60,000 years ago.
New Cave Painting No. ___, 2023
In addition to the above works, the show also includes a video of the performance piece created on opening night [video pending May 2023] as well as a 35-page artist’s studio research paper that I continue to supplement and refine exploring the past histories and future possibilities of text based art from art theory, art history, and other perspectives not just in United States or Western constructs but globally / worldwide. — Adam
April 2023
adam daley wilson
portland maine
chicago