Visual intention: Remove brushstroke, remove hand, remove choice from where the curves and lines fall. Symbol intention: Rely only on language symbols — text — to define the curves and lines used. Substantive intention: express, then erase, through layers of writing overwritten, arguments and narratives of the enormous ranges of a bipolar mind: Never the personal, but always the connections that such a mind finds. Never the trivial or fleeting, but always the largest, the broadest, across all cultures to date, all places, all times.
The works do not aim. They do not explore. They do not propose. They do not share an experience. If you see an aesthetic, feel free, this is yours. These pieces are not an artist’s personal vision. These works are pieces, one by one, of another world.
Adam Daley Wilson, represented by ENGAGE Projects Gallery in Chicago since 2020, is a self-taught artist. The origins of his works began tumbling out in 2014, at the age of 42, after a medicine change from his Harvard psychiatrist. Daley Wilson has a diagnosis of bipolar 1. These “notions” that fall out from his mind each day, five to fifty at a time, cause him to think and consider for months, sometimes even a year, before suddenly the execution occurs in just minutes. With no art education or art training, Daley Wilson’s conceptual works manifest in oil painting, photography, new media, and video. His works are in collections in the US and Europe; his first solo show in 2021 was listed as “Must See” in Chicago by Artforum; and his next solo show will be in early 2023. Starting in 2020 he as also been / is scheduled to be in three group shows. www.adamwilsonart.com; www.engage-projects.com
[Draft 7/19/2022]
