David Wilson
— David Wilson —
Living in the Pacific Northwest, renowned for its unenviable yearly rainfall, one often develops an unavoidable and polarizing connection to water. Its overabundance informs much of what David Wilson creates. In spite of potential negative connotations, there is a universal appeal to rain soaked city streets that evokes something entirely visceral. So often this is found in the film industry, in the pains it takes to recreate that wet and rain-saturated aesthetic. Those slick streets reflect so much of ourselves back at us it is like peering into a distorted mirror. A mirror that reminds us of places we inhabit, both imaginary and real.
Throughout Wilson’s work, water is identified explicitly in content and implicitly in form. The paintings become a chaotic kaleidoscope of light and colour infused with what we know and what we think we know, or remember. Although memory is elusive, Wilson approaches the process of his paintings as layers of memory, lying one over top of the other, eventually resembling something recognizable. Whether it is true or false matters less than speaking to a collective understanding, or recognition, of what is seen. Interrupting the Interface navigates through the real waters of our surroundings and the unreal waters of our representations to arrive at a reflection of both.
