Matthew Wilson (b. 1981) is an artist who worked at NIAD Art Center from 2015 to 2020. During this time, Wilson created hundreds of diagrammatic drawings that chart the inner workings of complex mechanical systems and the human mind. He used an array of drafting materials – softly smudged charcoal coupled with exacting graphite line work – on paper, canvas, and wood surfaces. Each work describes a real or imagined machine, with subjects ranging from trains, planes, hot-rods, hot-rod boat hybrids, helicopters, motorcycles, and blimps to elevators, rollercoasters, wood chippers, blenders, sharks, and brains. Beyond technical studies, Wilson’s apparatuses are animated by directional gestures and redactions that suggest motion, conflict, or malfunction.
Often the space around these precise designs is peppered with handwritten words and phrases: ruminations on social behaviors, emotion, pain, death, the cosmos, and the concept of infinity. By combining mechanical and personal inquiries, Wilson delivers a comprehensive look beneath the surface of things – through to the creaking gears, smoky combustion engines, whirring blades, and firing synapses that carry coded memories of movement and evermore mystifying philosophical questions.
Wilson’s work has been featured in numerous group exhibitions, including those at Narrative Gallery in Oakland, CA; Mills Building in San Francisco, CA; NIAD in Richmond, CA; and Depot in Steamboat Springs, CO. His drawings were showcased in booths at Paris Outsider Art Fair with Shrine NYC, and at OAF NYC with American Primitive Gallery. In 2016, Wilson mounted two solo exhibitions of new works on paper, in the Main Gallery at NIAD Art Center in Richmond and at Yali’s Cafe in Berkeley, both CA.
