PATRICK WILSON
PATRICK WILSON
BOOTH #A6 4 – 7 NOVEMBER PARK AVENUE ARMORY NEW YORK
525 West 22nd Street New York NY 10011
511 West 22nd Street New York NY 10011
520 West 21st Street New York NY 10011
PLEASURE PRINCIPLE: PATRICK WILSON’S RADICAL ABSTRACTIONS By Hunter Drohojowska-Philp Pleasure is one of the radical accomplishments of West Coast modernism. Operating on a parallel plane to the inquiries and trajectories of Europe and the East Coast, many artists in Southern California, especially, often operated apart from the dubious imperatives of battle, angst, and grit. From early 20th-century abstract painting to the 1960s Light and Space movement to today, there ensued a regular misunderstanding and even dismissal of their art. Nonetheless, many of these West Coast artists continued honing art that is alert to the agreeable sensation of being present. Patrick Wilson is a willing inheritor of this legacy. The half-dozen paintings in his exhibition at Miles McEnery were made in 2020, one of the most volatile, violent, and unpredictable years in memory. For the reference of future readers, the year included an attempted insurrection, an untamable pandemic, and economic ruin. Legions of artists addressed the turmoil in literal representations. Wilson has not responded to chaos with chaos. He has continued to insist that the pleasure of gazing at a subtle glimmer on water or light seeping through a window shade is a worthy discipline, as is the security of attending to his own perceptions and feelings.
3
His predecessors in the trajectory of non-objective painting are early 20th-century figures like Piet Mondrian and Josef Albers. Wilson, a native of the Northern California town of Redding, found his inspiration closer to home. After graduating from the University of California, Davis, a program associated with Funk art and figurative abstraction, he went on to get an MFA at Claremont Graduate University in 1995. That choice was inspired by Wilson’s lifelong association with the school’s driving force, the painter Karl Benjamin, who was a friend of Wil-
ARTIST NAME Title, year Details
4
son’s parents, particularly his father (who is also an artist). Benjamin, Lorser Feitelson, Frederick Hammersley, and John McLaughlin, all active in post-war Southern California, were shown together in 1959 at the Los Angeles County Museum of History, Science and Art, where they were the first to have their painting described as “hard-edge,” a term that came to be used for the nascent movement of geometric abstraction. All these artists are important to Wilson, and all have had some influence on the evolution of his painting. Benjamin, however, was the primary impetus, as he extended the possibilities of such painting with his seemingly endless explorations of color and form.
5
Wilson’s most recent paintings feature thinly layered geometric rectangles and squares delineated by precise lines—just as his previous works have. In this way, Wilson takes a stand against the market-driven push for change, for the latest attention-getting nuance. (Let’s not even get into the role of the Internet.) Wilson asks viewers to be where they are, hopefully viewing his art in person and taking the time to see the ways in which volume is suggested and defied, in which color is pushed to extremity or executed as barely visible pastels. Most viewers ask, “How does he do it?” The technical answer is with dry-wall blades and rollers using acrylic paint on canvas stretched tight over panels. But technique alone cannot account for the mystery of controlling perception. Wilson’s paintings demand the accountability of a viewer’s involvement in terms of passing time. They are fine as a quick study but finer still as a full surrender to the experience. The most recent works imply paintings within paintings, nestled squares and rectangles of opaque or translucent color that suggest physical volume and architectural space. It is the art of illusion, especially the way that a two-dimensional panel seems to contain a hidden source of light.
Wilson’s titles, though conceived after the paintings are completed, may conjure the activities of daily life: fishing, a barbeque, the opening of a flower. They are not meant as literal descriptions but the use of language in titles breaks down more theoretical barriers to appreciation. He invites a viewer to set aside the insistent demands of internal or external strife to indulge in the immanence of pure experience. To take a moment to contemplate a single painting that layers blood red against lime green, over lavender, with some dove gray, flamingo pink and so many more tones. Writing about Benjamin and other hard-edge painters for a 2004 show of their work at Otis College of Art and Design, Dave Hickey explained that an “externalized vision granted artists the privilege of their sanity in a manic, narcissistic cultural moment and, in doing so, created the conditions out of which the language of art in Southern California would evolve in the late twentieth century.” Wilson’s art has evolved out of that history to perpetuate the suggestion of pleasure as a radical statement.
Hunter Drohojowska-Philp is the author of Rebels in Paradise: The Los Angeles Art Scene and the 1960s and has written numerous books and articles on the modern and contemporary art of California and the West.
6
7
Bud Break, 2021 Acrylic on canvas 41 x 37 inches 104.1 x 94 cm
9
Car Wash, 2021 Acrylic on canvas 21 x 27 inches 53.3 x 68.6 cm
11
Day Trip, 2021
Acrylic on canvas 21 x 27 inches 53.3 x 68.6 cm
13
Freshwater Fishing, 2021 Acrylic on canvas, diptych 37 x 41 inches 94 x 104.1 cm
15
Hanabi, 2021
Acrylic on canvas 41 x 37 inches 104.1 x 94 cm
17
Morning Coffee, 2021 Acrylic on canvas 41 x 37 inches 104.1 x 94 cm
19
Pitmaster, 2021 Acrylic on canvas 41 x 37 inches 104.1 x 94 cm
21
Rush Hour, 2021 Acrylic on canvas 27 x 21 inches 68.6 x 53.3 cm
23
Summer Concert, 2021 Acrylic on canvas 27 x 21 inches 68.6 x 53.3 cm
25
Summer Gathering, 2021 Acrylic on canvas 21 x 27 inches 53.3 x 68.6 cm
27
Tea Ceremony, 2021 Acrylic on canvas 37 x 41 inches 94 x 104.1 cm
29
Tea Time, 2021 Acrylic on canvas 21 x 27 inches 53.3 x 68.6 cm
Published on the occasion of
PATRICK WILSON BOOTH #A6
4 – 7 November 2021 Park Avenue Armory New York NY Miles McEnery Gallery 520 West 21st Street New York NY 10011 511 West 22nd Street New York NY 10011 525 West 22nd Street New York NY 10011 tel +1 212 445 0051 www.milesmcenery.com Publication © 2021 Miles McEnery Gallery All rights reserved Essay © 2021 Hunter Drohojowska-Philp Director of Publications Anastasija Jevtovic, New York, NY Photography by Robert Wedemeyer, Los Angeles, CA ISBN: 978-1-949327-63-2 Cover: Hanabi, (detail), 2021