Helen Miranda Wilson

March 5 - March 30, 2002

Helen Miranda Wilson's first solo exhibition in three and a half years is also her first at DC Moore Gallery. It presents a change from her usual practice of focusing on a single subject or theme. This time, a diverse group of images are included, representing more completely what is to be found in the rich milieu of her studio. Her ink and brush drawings which are inspired by the immediacy of early Chinese and Japanese techniques are being shown here in quantity for the first time.

Otherwise the work continues to offer the same rewards: because of her sensual attention to detail, to color and to the qualities of surface and line, these pictures can sustain the closest possible attention. They are endlessly clear and yet they remain soft and alive, seeming even to breathe. Wilson still works from direct observation. The landscapes are always begun in a single spell of hours and then finished from memory so as to avoid making a composite of meteorological events. In contrast, the objects in her studio paintings are visited again and again. In both cases, a picture can take months or even years to finish. In contrast, the ink drawings happen quickly, more like a performance of music or dance.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue with an introduction by Mary Gordon.