Through Imago, Wilson’s second solo exhibition with Denny Dimin Gallery, we see the gallery space transformed into the artist’s world, where her multimedia works of large scale collages, tromp l’oeil assemblages, monumental figures and video works are brought to life furthered by wooden sculptural collaborations with her partner Mike Lagg.
The title of the exhibition, “Imago”, explores the ideas of imagery, regeneration and reflection. Directly taken from the Latin word meaning image, it relates to a stage of metamorphosis when a winged insect reaches full maturity having morphed from egg to larva to pupa, then moving through imago to adult. There is also a secondary meaning attributed to “Imago” in psychology where we unconsciously reflect personality traits from formative relationships. Usually this pertains to a parent figure, however, with Wilson she uses it to delve further into her artistic relationship with her partner Lagg, a woodworker who has contributed to this exhibition. Wilson posits that we become what we turn our attention to. Her life’s work is devoted to image making; she uses different media such as print, collage and painting to explore repetition and difference in creating images. Motifs are drawn, printed, reprinted, dissected, cut-up, collaged and painted over to form a whole new image. Here we can witness the metamorphosis at play, where through Wilson’s hand the medium moves through stages to where it reaches her version of imago – and its final transformation. As a celebrant of nature and lover of the outside world she sees herself as an ecosexual where nature moves away from something that humankind uses or consumes to a place to love and explore as a lover or partner. These sentiments naturally flow into her relationship with Lagg and in turn into her art practice.
“It is no longer a question of imitation, nor duplication, nor even parody. It is a question of substituting the signs of the real for the real”
When Baudrillard wrote these words, his was a critique on the proliferation of imagery substituting the real experience. In Paula Wilson’s work, the image, its replication, reflection and repeated imprint is the real experience by which she lives and practices as an artist. Each element of who Wilson is embeds in her work and that in turn casts the experience into the environment where the work is shown and placed. In this latest exhibition, the magic of her world and life in New Mexico is not simulated but simply extended into the gallery where the works come alive having realized their full transformation of imago.
Paula Wilson in front of Earth Angel, in her studio in Carrizozo, New Mexico
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