Paula Wilson

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. 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.

Early life

Paula Wilson was born in Chicago, 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.

Education

Wilson attended Washington University in St. Louis from 1994 to 1998, earning her B.F.A. and graduating summa cum laude. She earned her M.F.A. from Columbia University.

Life and work

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) and the Carrizozo Artist in Residency (AIR)(founded in 2016).

Academia

Wilson was a Visiting Critic at Yale School of Art from 2005 to 2007 and an assistant professor at Columbia University School of the Arts from 2007 to 2008. In 2015. she served as the Louis D. Beaumont Artist-in-Residence & Visiting Assistant Professor in the College and Graduate School of Art in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis. She has been a visiting artist at many institutions and universities nationally.

Visiting Artist, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, 2016 Visiting Lecturer, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York, 2017 Visiting Lecturer, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 2017 Visiting Artists, Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, 2020 Visiting Artist, Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio, 2020

Solo exhibitions Source: 2000–What's So Personal, The Butcher Shop, Chicago, Illinois 2006–Paintings and Drawings from the Hanno Valley, Galleria Suzy Shammah, Milan, Italy 2008–The Stained Glass Ceiling, Bellwether Gallery, New York, New York 2010–First Story, The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 2014–"Undress, Center for Contemporary Arts, Spector Ripps Project Space, Santa Fe, New Mexico 2015–Back it Up, Museum Blue, St. Louis, Missouri 2015–Salty & Fresh, Cherry & Lucic, Portland, Oregon 2017–Salty & Fresh, Emerson Dorsch Gallery, Miami, Florida 2017–Paula Wilson: The Backward Glance, Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Omaha, Nebraska 2018–FLOORED, HOLDING Contemporary, Portland, Oregon 2018–PIECESCAPE, Visitor Welcome Center, Los Angeles, California 2018–Spread Wild: Pleasures of the Yucca, Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, New York 2018–The Light Becomes You, Denny Dimin Gallery, New York, New York 2019–Entangled, 516 ARTS, Albuquerque, New Mexico 2022–Be Wild. Bewilder, Emerson Dorsch Gallery, Miami, Florida

Selected group exhibitions Source: 2000–Young Love, Mapreed Gallery, Los Angeles, California 2001–Brat(Wurst): A Show of Chicago Artists, Vox Populi, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 2002–Signs, Public Art Installation, Chicago, Illinois 2004–Hungry Eyes, First Year MFA Exhibition, Columbia University, Ira D. Wallach Gallery, New York, New York 2004–After Goya, Leroy Neiman Gallery, Columbia University, Curated by Tomas Vu Daniel, New York, New York 2004–Past Perfect, Kantor/Feuer Gallery, New York, New York 2005–Recess: Images & Objects in Formation, Rush Gallery, Curated by Derek Adams, New York, New York 2005–MFA Thesis Exhibition, Studebaker Building, Curated by Jeffrey Uslip, New York, New York 2006–Frequency, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, New York 2006–The Manhattan Project, Fred Snitzer Gallery, Miami, Florida 2006–Turn the Beat Around, Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York, New York 2007–Black Alphabet, contexts of Contemporary African American Art, Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, Poland 2007–Horizon, EFA Gallery, Curated by David Humphrey, New York, New York 2007–Cinema Remixed and Reloaded: Black Women Artists and the Moving Image Since 1970, Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, Atlanta, Georgia 2009–Cinema Remixed and Reloaded: Black Women Artists and the Moving Image Since 1970, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Houston, Texas 2009–Collected. Propositions on the Permanent Collection, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, New York 2009–A Decade of Contemporary American Printmaking: 1999–2009, Tsingha University, Beijing, China 2009–While We Were Away, Sragow Gallery, New York, New York 2009–Carrizozo Artist's Show, Gallery 408, Carrizozo, New Mexico 2010–41st Collectors Show, Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, Arkansas 2010–Defrosted: A Life of Walt Disney, Postmasters Gallery, New York, New York 2010–Art on Paper: The 41st Exhibition, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, North Carolina 2011–The February Show, Ogilvy & Mather, New York, New York 2011–Art by Choice, Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, Mississippi 2012–Configured, Benrimon Contemporary, Curated By Teka Selman, New York, New York 2012–The Bearden Project, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, New York 2013–Sanctify, Vincent Price Museum, Los Angeles, California 2013–I Am The Magic Hand, Sikkema Jenkins & Co, Organized by Josephine Halvorson, New York, New York 2015–DRAW: Mapping Madness, Inside – Out Art Museum, curated by Tomas Vu, Beijing, China 2014 2016–Visions Into Infinite Archives, SOMArts Cultural Center, curated by Black Salt Collective, San Francisco, California 2016–Residency, form & concept, Santa Fe, New Mexico 2016–Surface Area: Selections from the Permanent Collection, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, New York 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 2017–The Unhomely, Denny Gallery, New York, New York 2017–Sunrise, Sunset, Emerson Dorsch Gallery, Miami, Florida 2019–20 and Odd: The 400-Year Anniversary of 1619, curated by Kalia Brooks Nelson, Leroy Neiman Gallery, Columbia University, New York, New York 2019–In This Body of Mine: Strange Fire Collective at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 2019–Fragment, Emerson Dorsch Gallery, Miami, Florida 2019–Contemporary Performance, curated by Kalup Linzy, Florida Museum of Photographic Art, Tampa, Florida

Personal life Wilson currently lives and works in Carrizozo, New Mexico with her partner, woodworker Mike Lagg.

Recognition

Wilson has been featured in publications such as Hyperallergic, Artforum, The New York Times, The Brooklyn Rail, and The New Yorker.

Wilson received the Award of Distinction from Washington University’s Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, in St. Louis in 2019. She has been awarded residencies at the Fabric Workshop and Museum (2009–2010), Vermont Studio Center, and the Giverny Residency from the Art Production Fund in Giverny, France. She has also received a place on the short list, Joyce Alexander Wein Artist Prize, Studio Museum in Harlem, 2007 and the Milovich Award in Painting, School of Art, Washington University, 1998.