Jane Wilson: Watercolors

From October 3 through November 10, 2008, The Drawing Room in East Hampton is pleased to present an exhibition of watercolors by Jane Wilson, who divides her time between studios in New York and Water Mill, where the changing skies and seas have been her primary subject for thirty years.

Characterized by low horizons and expansive skies, and often rendered in square compositions, Wilson’s fresh watercolors explore the effect of weather conditions on cloud formations and the light and air surrounding them. While Wilson’s name is clearly associated with Eastern Long Island where she spends the warmer months keenly observing meteorological shifts and their impact, she also stands apart from other regional landscape painters. She has earned a reputation as a colorist who approaches representation of the natural world with the freedom associated with gestural abstraction. 

Many of the watercolors demonstrate the spontaneity of the process that Wilson embraces. “I never do know what image or season may emerge from the end of the sable brush when water, pigment, paper and gravity take over. Most images in transparent watercolor do come from sitting in the welter of sensations of so-called place, but some come out of the always surprising behavior of the ingredients, which to me is another kind of nature.” In fresh, luminous examples such as End of Drizzle (2005) or Foggy Day Break (2008), Wilson takes advantage of the watery effects of colors bleeding together as they meet to form an edge that may suggest a horizon or a bank of clouds on the move.

See below for full press release and selected works.