Encompassing paintings, drawings, watercolor and prints, Richard Wilson’s exhibition Storm Over The City features selected works from 1978 to the present. Wilson offers glimpses into the human condition, with all its inherent challenges, vices and contradictions. There is a theatricality in the artist’s imagined environments—some are inhabited by a comedic cast of characters—while in other works sexually charged figures unite en masse.  

Dark humor permeates a number of Wilson’s meticulously rendered graphite drawings. The artist depicts anthropomorphic creatures engaging in mischief and sometimes inflicting pain on the human subjects. For instance, in The Cauldron, a froglike woman-creature has turned a man upside down in a painful wrestling hold while in Success, horned devils are forcing people to tend a fire.  In other works, like Dysfunctional Friends, Wilson’s subjects are consumed with their own self-inflicted buffoonery. Despite the desperate conditions facing Wilson’s uncanny characters, the collective absurdity of the scenes elicit a humorous response. 

Sponsors:

This exhibition is funded in part by a grant from the Maine Arts Commission, an independent state agency supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, and a grant from the City of Bangor Commission on Cultural Development.

Image Credits:

Richard Wilson (American, born 1947). A Moment, 2021. Acrylic on canvas. Courtesy of the artist.