Paula Wilson (born December 17, 1975) is an African American "mixed media" artist creating works examining women's identities through a lens of cultural history. She uses sculpture, collage, painting, installation, and printmaking methods such as silkscreen, lithography, and woodblock.[1] In 2007 Wilson moved from Brooklyn, New York, to Carrizozo, New Mexico (population 996), where she currently lives and works with her woodworking partner Mike Lagg.[2]
Paula Wilson was born in Chicago[3] and grew up in Hyde Park on the south side of the city, where her father, William Julius Wilson, was a professor of sociology at the University of Chicago. Her mother, Beverly Ann Wilson, is an artist and bookbinder.[4]
Wilson is known for her monumental and tactile work describing narratives and environments that fit her experience as a biracial black woman. She reimagines art historical tropes and inserts versions of herself into the landscape and canon. Shifting between graphic and painterly representations, she builds narratives by collapsing pictorial planes. Wilson’s work is anchored in self-portrait, printmaking, installation, and collage. She prints images with wood blocks, silkscreens, intaglio, and monotypes; layers acrylic, oil, and spray paint; shoots videos inserting 2-D work into the landscape; she cuts, glues, and stitches to make colorful, dense assemblages. Her works often burst from their wall or frame, reflecting a constant re-assembly of lived experiences: black and white, urban and rural, traditional and contemporary, singular and collective.
Wilson is co-founder of the artist organizations MoMAZoZo (founded in 2010)[7] and the Carrizozo Artist in Residency (AIR)(founded in 2016).[8]
2017–"The Unhomely," Denny Gallery, New York, New York[40]
2017–"The Young Years, The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College," curated by Dayton Director Ian Berry, Saratoga Springs, New York[41]
2016–"Surface Area: Selections from the Permanent Collection,"Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, New York[42]
2016–"Residency," form & concept, Santa Fe, New Mexico[43]
2016–"Visions Into Infinite Archives," SOMArts Cultural Center, curated by Black Salt Collective, San Francisco, California[44][45][46]
2015–DRAW: Mapping Madness, Inside – Out Art Museum, curated by Tomas Vu, Beijing, China 2014[47][48]
2013–"I Am The Magic Hand," Sikkema Jenkins & Co, Organized by Josephine Halvorson, New York, New York
2013– "Sanctify," Vincent Price Museum, Los Angeles, California
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