Pictures Aside

Booklet produced in colllaboration with Pictures Aside, 2023

Press Release

“Everything is deceptive, only the mask never lies.”
                                                              —Pierre de Marivaux

On the surface, Wilson presents a group of paintings depicting an assortment
of mirrored reflections, paintings, prints, photographs, and reproductions. These
pictures within the paintings adorn a variety of provisional spaces; foyers, waiting
areas, bedside tables, drawing rooms, and motels. Like his previous work, Wilson
recasts images of interior spaces and set dressing found in the seemingly
endless availability of streaming television and film. These repurposed screen
grabs are then filtered through the historical lens of premodern tendencies
in representation. This practice, an attempt at slowing the viewer down for

reflection remains, yet here, Wilson doubles down by zooming in on the re-
depiction of those quoted histories within his own pictures. This reframing

literally and metaphorically rearranges the conditions with which one engages
in that contemplation.

“To me, the recursive nature of these paintings is analogous to the infinite
regress of thought and meaning—in the way that the definition of words require
the use of other, yet to be defined, words to describe them, and so on. Painting
is a way of re-contextualizing these strange loops and harnessing meaning
indirectly. For example, to quote me speaking now in this context is altogether
different than the previous paragraph, despite the fact that I wrote them both.”
                                                                                                                                         —Tim Wilson

In the end, for Wilson, the blunt material facts of painting; color, its liquid form, and
the substrates that hold them, are the truth of painting—the mask. Everything
else is fiction. But adrift in this sea of artifice, where arbitrary signs and symbols
are broken and ripped from their origins, Wilson’s paintings attempt to buoy our
thoughts by returning the picture back to painting.

Tim Wilson (b. 1970) lives and works in Brooklyn, New York and holds an MFA from Yale University School of Art and a BFA from The Virginia Commonwealth University. He has been awarded residencies at Offshore Residency, Sol LeWitt Studio, Shandaken Project and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. Most recently, his work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Fahrenheit Madrid (Madrid, Spain), Alfred University (Alfred, NY) and Sardine (Brooklyn, NY) among others. He has been included in several group shows, including, The Flag Art Foundation (New York, NY), Jack Hanley Gallery (New York, NY), and Harper’s Books (East Hampton, NY).