Mixing the Registers

A painting on a support, a wall–painting: objects on a wall, or part of it. A painting installation, or an installation of paintings: singular visual experiences, or a collection of works whose individual contributions shape the space and form the contours of the field. What are the links between real and implied space, and how can these be complicated, confounded and re–imagined?

Mandolyn Wilson navigates, rearranges and reframes spaces’ relationships to each other, exploring and exposing the plasticity and flexibility of her medium and her practice. She traces an edge between paintings as physical objects, and their dissolution into other perceptual phenomena and modes of perception. In reality, she seems to say, we shouldn’t forget the context in which we encounter these works.

Wilson’s fields of color, for instance, might call attention to paint’s physical materiality or imply expansive spatial depth, or both. In this installation, the implied continuation of a bit of air–conditioning ductwork is manifested as a painted purplish stripe receding into the wall. This diagonal stripe crystallizes spatial possibilities beyond the bricks and mortar of the room in which we’re standing. Another painted stripe in a ruddy red implies a new vanishing point for a doorway. And both of these frame the edges of an even deeper space — hazy, and just perceptibly blue — that takes out the corner of the room, implying a vast, almost oceanic expanse beyond architectural constraints.

Multiple possibilities exist for the apprehension and experience of space, and these can and do occur simultaneously. Wilson orchestrates a space in which seeming oppositions playfully broaden and give depth to each other’s reach, rather than negating or limiting the field. An untitled photographic collage on canvas board brings an image of a surfer into the mix. The original collage was doubled when Wilson painted a copy of it on a panel, Color Guard (West), 2008. Both works are included here, and the image’s duality establishes an opportunity for a spatio–temporal double take.

Up Hairiscope is perhaps the most traditionally installed work in this group. Depicting a crashing wave framed by what looks like hair, a tumultuous ocean stands in for the face. This is a complicated and nuanced work, implying physical and emotional depths, and acting as a bridge between them.

Engaging architectural scale and volume, Wilson creates opportunities for the implied space of abstract painting to pierce and pour back into real space, establishing a shifting relay between paintings as autonomous and responsive objects.

— Dean Daderko, May 2008