Southwest New Mexico’s premier exhibition space, the Francis McCray Gallery on the campus of Western New Mexico University, proudly presents “Full Circle: A Retrospective by Paul B. Wilson” opening on Friday, October 8 from 5-9pm. The show continues through November 5. Regular gallery hours at McCray Gallery are 12-4 Monday-Friday; however, during “Weekend at the Galleries” McCray will be open.
Wilson is a painter and works primarily in oils. His formative years were spent in Santa Fe, where his father, Woodrow Wilson, established and operated “Woodrow Wilson Fine Arts”, an upscale gallery that regularly sold and exhibited work by the Taos Society of Artists; the Cinco Pintores of Santa Fe, Peter Hurd and many other luminaries of the School of the Southwest. Wilson’s early work reflects his exposure to the impressionist “plein air” style of painting that made Santa Fe the third strongest art market in the world. Wilson was an established landscape painter when he moved to Silver City.
In the 1990s when Wilson was settled in Silver City, his work, still essentially representational, evolved into a more abstract, less representational style, eventually becoming completely non-objective. This change in Wilson’s work was well described by an area writer, Will Hanson, architect and author, when he said, “Painters change direction frequently; if they don’t, they usually stagnate. But these changes are generally spread over a longish period of time and become apparent gradually. So when Paul Wilson suddenly, as if overnight, switched from painting fine, objective landscapes to even finer, fully-realized abstractions, I wanted to find out how this dramatic change came about.”
The current exhibit “Full Circle” reveals even another twist in the evolution of Wilson’s style. “When you see Wilson’s latest works, they can ONLY be a Paul Wilson,” said McCray Gallery Director Paula Geisler, “and, after all, isn’t the goal of every artist to find his/her personal style?”
Wilson’s retrospective continues through November 5. For more information call the gallery at 538-6517.