2col HW_Me and Him…jpg

Helen Miranda Wilson, “Me and Him,” 2007, oil on panel, 11 by 11 inches.

FOR 3/21

HELEN MIRANDA WILSON WILL OPEN AT DC MOORE GALLERY MARCH 26, W/1 CUT

AVV/CD #731026

NEW YORK CITY — “Helen Miranda Wilson: Stripes” will be on view March 26–April 26 at DC Moore Gallery. A reception for the artist will take place Wednesday, March 26, from 6 to 8 pm.

In February 2006, Wilson began to paint stripes, laid out in horizontal lines of emphatic, local color. Each line has a sureness and straightness without being rigidly defined. The paint is not applied gesturally, but mistakes are allowed and are left to be seen.

No two colors are alike, and are randomly chosen, applied in unregimented ripple of light and dark. These tonal alternations are as satisfying to see as they are when found in nature. Each picture contains a scrolled, narrative sequence that marked time as it passed, while the artist worked down the surface, covering it from top to bottom, one color at a time.

These simple convincing paintings use the same techniques and small format for which the artist is known. The surfaces are matte and yet have a velvety, open quality because the artist uses oil paint with no added medium and applies no final overcoat of varnish.

The edges of the unframed panels retain the drips of primer, sanded smooth; they are meant to be seen as part of the object. Wilson typically works wet-into-wet, blending the paint into itself with fan brushes. The colors often drift into each other, like a mist of breath, visible in the air before one’s face on a cold day. She has used this technique to blur the lines between one section of a painting and the next, since the early 1970s.

It is no coincidence that the organic appearance of these transitions resembles the markings on animals, birds and insects that serve as their camouflage, resembling as they do the patterns of light, wind and water. Wilson now lives year round by the sea, in the town in which she grew up. Her work continues to be informed by her environment, although there is no recognizable subject matter in her images.

DC Moore Gallery is on the eighth floor of 724 Fifth Avenue between 56th and 57th Streets. For more information, 212-247-2111.