Wilson’s expressionist work on display at the CCAC

By James Grob, jgrob@charlescitypress.com

At age 74, Dan Wilson said he’s still learning how to be an artist.

“My primary purpose of painting is for me,” Wilson said. “I put what I want the meaning to be inside the paintings, but I would prefer people look at them and get their own meaning out of them.”

Wilson, who lives in Cedar Falls, is the featured artist for the month of May at the Charles City Arts Center. His exhibit, entitled “Color Symbolist,” will be available for viewing through the end of the month.

The CCAC held an online reception for Wilson on Friday, and he explained what helps inspire his art.

“The act of creating and making art gives me a brilliant and colorfully saturated existence delivering me from the dark world of chronic pain,” Wilson said. “My art offers me a meditative, Zen-like, state that transports me to a pain-free zone; a higher plane of consciousness.”

Wilson suffers from Trigeminal Neuralgia, a condition which produces extreme chronic pain in the face, and there is no cure for the condition.

“Art allows me to transfer my pain using a world of colors, textures, design and elements of poetry,” Wilson said. “Exploring the layers of the painting, the viewer may find visual clues to my pain. Through complex arrangement of colors, pattern and design the symbolism may be obvious and at other times hidden and obscure.”

Originally from West Virginia, Wilson has lived in Ohio, abroad in Germany, and retired in North Carolina. Upon his retirement, he moved to Cedar Falls, near his son’s family — on the same block as his grandchildren.

His son, Aaron Wilson, is a professor at Northern Iowa and has exhibited at the CCAC in the past, and he suggested Dan do the same.

Wilson said he considers myself as an eclectic artist, and he hopes those who view his exhibit will see what that means.

“When I first started as an artist those many years ago, I was painting in super realism or photo realism,” Wilson said. “I got to the point where I was asking myself, ‘What is the purpose of this style of art? Does my work say more than a good photo?’”

He said when he started as an artist, he was painting super-realism or photo-realism, then eventually started to explore a more expressionist style, or impressionistic.

“As the years rolled on I began to gravitate more to the cubist abstract and nonobjective style of art,” Wilson said. “I found this style more expressive of my feelings and spirituality, so I continue to explore in that region of art styles. I’ll occasionally return to my photo realism style just to test my skills in that area.”

Wilson said he has gravitated toward tempera paint as his medium of choice.

“I still do graphite drawing and oil painting, but tempera is much more satisfying to my artist needs,” he said.

He said there is an ease with tempera that offers multiple ways to apply it to the surface and layer the paint.

“Tempera is seldom seen in contemporary work but I find it communicates my processes and eclecticism well,” Wilson said. “The layers and complexity are achieved through the building up of multiple transparent layers, saturating the colors and building textures, visual and real, which engage the viewer.”