ED WILSON AMERICAN SCULPTOR

Excerpt from an essay "The Art of Ed Wilson"
By Michael Roque Collins

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.....In a time where so many art trends reflect “high art esthetics,” where process becomes content, the work of Ed Wilson is refreshing because he combines excellence of process in collaboration with art about the human experience.  This artist has developed his techniques to the limits of technical perfection.  The subject  matter, however, is rooted in internal and spiritual forms.  These subjects question the very nature of our rituals relating to faith and to cultural power.  His works questions the abuse of power in our society and investigates globally rooted power aspirations. This artist´s work  possesses quixotic sub themes  which are often balanced with rye humor and sublimely quirky figuration.  As we find ourselves surrounded daily by brutal global aggression his work becomes even more timely and as a prescient reminder of our need for respecting humanity and fostering individual spirituality. 

Ed Wilson’s works are rich with delicate patinas of grey and subtle colors underscoring the somber nature of his thinking expressed powerfully through his sculptures. There exists a sense of potential menace and a price to be paid for our shared cultural greed.  As with the works of Otto Dix, a certain powerful grotesquery exists in his works. Wilson’s use of a surrealistic sense of space and form commingle to foster a mysteriously metaphysical presence in his bias relief’s and large sculpture.  Perspective is distorted in his shallow relief landscapes further isolating the viewer in city spaces emptied of the human presence.  There exists a horrible beauty in his subject that is contrasted by the elegance of his precise and well crafter process.