June 04, 2012 | in Juxtapoz
Last week we stopped by the opening reception of Though You Slay Me a solo exhibition of new works by Edward Walton Wilcox at Merry Karnowsky Gallery in Los Angeles. Though his Gothic and almost archaic technique betrays a romantic affinity for the legacy of his craft, without a doubt Wilcox brings us something new, captivating and disquieting. Photos and more after the jump….
Merry Karnowsky Gallery is proud to present Though You Slay Me, the latest solo exhibition by Edward Walton Wilcox. This exhibition serves to reaffirm that Wilcox represents the continuation, if not evolution of the multi-talented Renaissance man, achieving an absolute mastery of craftsmanship across a vast swathe of mediums and disciplines. Though his Gothic and almost archaic technique betrays a romantic affinity for the legacy of his craft, without a doubt Wilcox brings us something new, captivating and disquieting.
If one squeezed the collected works of Edgar Allen Poe hard enough to transmute words into paint and meld this essence with the stark piety of the Dutch masters, then you’d have something fairly close to Wilcox’s vision for Though You Slay Me. Thematically and actually, darkness is all pervasive. It saturates his palette of amber tints, ember reds, sulfur yellows, decaying sepia tones; it manifests itself in the form of dilapidated windmills, the looming mortality of skeletons and beautiful things rendered unsettlingly.
Collectively, his paintings and hand-crafted installations ensnare us and pull us into the depths of an alternative future reality. In this future, our age’s obsession for constant technological progress has given way to the pursuit of the utopian ideal of a morally and spiritually balanced universe. Evoked through Wilcox’s agency, the inmates of this world peer out at us, their intensity blurring the line between the reality of the room and Wilcox’s fantasy. Try as we might, we cannot help but immerse ourselves and engage with their mute divulgences.
Superstition and the spirits of the distant past lurk here; but where the sixteenth century had Bosch to guide us through the dark - we have Wilcox.
Following are a few images from the opening reception.
-Amy Duran
Edward Wilton Wilcox
Though You Slay Me
Merry Karnowsky Gallery
Through June 23, 2012