Hilary Wilder
My paintings, installations and sculptures often allude to familiar visual languages (for example, 19th-century landscape painting, decorative marquetry and cabinetry design, medieval gold sculpture, Scandinavian modern furniture), while never actually quoting or appropriating from them. The works might be read in various instances as overly Romantic, slightly subversive or humorous, or completely (albeit deliberately) misinformed.
I intend for these projects to underscore how the aesthetic or the look of an artwork or other object – and what it suggests in regard to history, class, or importance – is perhaps more significant than its actual subject, materials, or provenance. By participating in a recontextualizing or a “vulgarization” of art history and design, I hope to draw attention to the problematic notions of taste and refinement that persist even within the presumably elastic arenas of art production and art criticism.
