Zillman Art Museum (ZAM) announces New Exhibition

BANGOR – The Zillman Art Museum - University of Maine, located at 40 Harlow Street in Bangor, ME, opens a new
exhibition that will run January 19 - May 3, 2024. ZAM is open Tuesday-Saturday from 10 am - 5 pm and brings modern and
contemporary art to the region, presenting approximately 21 original exhibitions each year. Admission to the Zillman Art
Museum is free in 2024 thanks to the generosity of Birchbrook.

RICHARD WILSON: STORM OVER THE CITY
January 19 - May 3, 2024

Encompassing paintings, drawings, watercolor and prints, Richard Wilson’s exhibition Storm Over The City features selected
works from 1978 to the present. Wilson offers glimpses into the human condition, with all its inherent challenges, vices
and contradictions. There is a theatricality in the artist’s imagined environments—some are inhabited by a comedic cast of
characters—while in other works sexually charged figures unite en masse.

Dark humor permeates a number of Wilson’s meticulously rendered graphite drawings. The artist depicts anthropomorphic
creatures engaging in mischief and sometimes inflicting pain on the human subjects. For instance, in The Cauldron, a froglike
woman-creature has turned a man upside down in a painful wrestling hold while in Success, horned devils are forcing people
to tend a fire. In other works, like Dysfunctional Friends, Wilson’s subjects are consumed with their own self-inflicted buffoonery.
Despite the desperate conditions facing Wilson’s uncanny characters, the collective absurdity of the scenes elicit a humorous
response.

However, there is a sense of looming peril in Wilson’s recent paintings. Questions are posed such as: what is lurking beneath
the expanse of blue waters in which two tiny figures swim in opposite directions? At what point does the outdoor adventure
seeker realize that his canoe will soon crash over a rushing waterfall? These paintings convey the vulnerability of humans when
facing the vastness, mystery and power of nature.

###