Arguing that avant-garde art was “behind the times,” Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm pointed out that motion pictures appeared on the sociocultural scene at roughly the same time as Cubism did in the early twentieth century, but that cinema’s “techniques of multiple perspective, varying focus, and tricks of cutting”—bringing the awareness that different aspects of an object could be seen at the same time—were derived from, and an elaboration of, filmic innovations. The movies, Hobsbawm argued, are a more sophisticated and communicative form of art by dint of their technological ingenuity, well beyond anything that “advanced” painting could ever offer. Like Buridan’s ass, Tim Wilson seems stuck in a situation of undecidability: “Between Either and Or,” as the title of his exhibition at Nathalie Karg Gallery implies; that is, either film or painting. Though he’s chosen the latter as his medium, the subject matter of the lovely, moodily rendered works in this show was all derived from film stills.
Wilson’s paintings—all oil on paper mounted on linen stretched over panels—were modestly sized: None were taller than two feet, and the majority of them were roughly twelve inches wide. Each one either depicted a regal atmospheric still life or provided a glimpse into some uninhabited but marvelously furnished interior. Perfume (all works cited, 2021) is a portrayal of a desolate-looking dressing table in an airless room, bathed in satiny oranges, golds, and umbers. Atop the vanity sit a menagerie of scents and an eerily sentinel-like mirror. Stairway Ipresents a rather baroque version of the titular architectural feature. The steps are upholstered with crimson carpeting, and the elaborately carved newel at the stairwell’s entry is crowned by a heavy ormolu lamp. Perhaps the image is based on a scene from an old Hammer horror film or on some weepy eighteenth-century period piece.
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