La Peña Gallery in Austin, Texas:
A Site of Latina Art, Politics and Resistance
LILIANA WILSON'S LUCID DREAMSCAPE
The artwork of Liliana Wilson functions on many distinct and different planes. Her paintings combine the spiritual and physical in a way that makes the experiencing of viewing her art dreamlike. Vignettes composed of figures, often with symbolic structures and objects, tell stories of destruction, recount instances of pain, and interrogate the way in which the visual can convey ideas of emotionality and politics. Critic and scholar George Vargas characterizes the content of Wilson’s work as falling into two primary categories: Political Expression and Dreamscape (Ofrenda 87). While the summation may be a bit tidy, its brevity does offer an excellent entry point for many of Wilson’s artistic ideals and allow for a more structured analysis of her work, themes, and influences.
Gloria Anzaldua
"To be disoriented in space is to be en nepantla. To be disoriented in space is to experience bouts of disassociation of identity, identity breakdowns and buildups. The border is in a constant nepantla state, and it is an analog of the planet."
Wilson's Work Across Time and Space
FORMA Y CONTENIDO
In language that is appropriately abstract given the nature of her work, Wilson’s self proclaimed artist statement says that her images “...come from the subconscious. Many of the figures I create appear in ‘other-world’ environments: their outward composure in direct contrast to their inner turmoil. Realities collide on multiple levels as beauty emanates from the subjects.” Her philosophy appears remarkably systematic for her work across time. While her content changes over the course of her career--from dreamlike and symbolized depictions of death and torture in her native Chile, to conflicts of interiority--her form remains fairly stable. Wilson’s work emanates a very visually distinctive style that holds from the beginning of her career to now.
Liliana Wilson
“Often my compositions represent single moments in the lives of individuals that serve as metaphors for those lives. Recently my work has shifted to incorporate spiritual aspects of the universe and its surrounding beauty as necessary components of our human experience.”
Structures in Space
The lines in Wilson's paintings are soft, and the images generally unharsh. Each individual image within the painting is lucid, but muted, giving the effect that the painting functions as a unified whole. Individual elements are given their due--and Wilson herself has spoken of the importance of symbolism within her work--but the overall emphasis is on composition and the way that the parts fit together. There is a quality of flatness, as well. Rather than emphasis on individual elements, the paintings are portrait-like in their ability to capture a unified and still idea or gesture.
In the opening essay in Ofrenda, a collection of writing dedicated to the critical analysis of Wilson’s work, she writes “I compose my paintings as structures in space.” Formal experimentation in Wilson’s work often takes the form of shadows, textures, the use of multiple differing shades of one color to create a vivid depth, and through the posture of the figures in her paintings. Her forms--figures, structures, objects--are clear and precise, positioned exactly where they should to convey the artist’s goal, which is never wholly political expression nor entirely dreamscape. Their quality of mystery comes with the dreamlike execution of vision--whether that comes from from the painting’s composition and content or its formal qualities.
Wilson, Anzaldua, and Nepantla
IN-BETWEEN-NESS
Gloria Anzaldua’s friendship, scholarship, and concept of “Nepantla” greatly inform Wilson’s art. Nepantla--a Nahuatl word meaning “in-between-ness”--suits the nebulous world of Wilson’s works. A number of influencing forces collide and merge in Liliana Wilson’s art, and critical interpretive efforts often account for the politically and artistically nebulous territory in which Wilson’s paintings comes to life. After fleeing Pinochet’s regime in Chile as a law student during the ‘70s, and then living in Texas while training as an artist, Wilson’s work reflects the material of her biography: fluid boundaries imposed on hazy planes. Wilson does not clarify what is definite or real and what is symbolic. This lack of clarity suggests that her work does not make any claim to what is real and what is not, and perhaps that image, and metaphor, communicate the emotional power of experience more clearly than strictures of artistic genre. In the world of Wilson’s art, the quality of in-between-ness is part of the fabric of the work, not merely a component.