59 min
Beware the Artist Episode 018 Lee Nowell-Wilson Beware the Artist
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- Arts
Lee Nowell-Wilson (b. Easton, MD 1989) is an American figurative artist who builds autobiographical drawings that investigate the emotional and ambivalent undertones within birth, domestic labor and human relationship. Through using the female body and maternal subject, Nowell-Wilson illuminates a detail of life that is extremely personal, yet universal. She predominantly executes this in an ironic way by using mundane objects (blankets, dishes, pillows, toys) to express complex human tendencies and emotions. Those ordinary household items create forms that become a secondary subject in-and-of themselves and interact with Nowell-Wilson’s figures on an interpersonal level. A tight turtleneck becomes a close partner in conversation. The womb of blankets upon one’s head becomes the hand that steals identity, while simultaneously creating a self-birthing place and points to a labor worth crowning.
Nowell-Wilson’s work investigates that tipping point — the line where the maternalistic state of being tips from something sensitive to aggressive, from a tearing tension to close connection — and she invites her viewer into that vulnerable walk. While also combining high realism, abstract marks and empty contours, Nowell-Wilson speaks metaphorically to elements of weight, physicality, mental health and veneration.
Nowell-Wilson earned her BFA in Painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2011. She has participated in artist residencies with Stay Home Gallery in Paris, TN, Creative Paradox in Annapolis, MD and the Street Art School in Lyon, France. Her work has exhibited nationally and internationally, most notably New York City and Scotland, and she has also completed urban art pieces in Norway, France, Northern Ireland and Chile. In 2019, she founded MILKED, a new arts publication featuring visual art, photography and the written word by female artists investigating the maternal figure and form.
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Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jeremy-jirsa/support
Lee Nowell-Wilson (b. Easton, MD 1989) is an American figurative artist who builds autobiographical drawings that investigate the emotional and ambivalent undertones within birth, domestic labor and human relationship. Through using the female body and maternal subject, Nowell-Wilson illuminates a detail of life that is extremely personal, yet universal. She predominantly executes this in an ironic way by using mundane objects (blankets, dishes, pillows, toys) to express complex human tendencies and emotions. Those ordinary household items create forms that become a secondary subject in-and-of themselves and interact with Nowell-Wilson’s figures on an interpersonal level. A tight turtleneck becomes a close partner in conversation. The womb of blankets upon one’s head becomes the hand that steals identity, while simultaneously creating a self-birthing place and points to a labor worth crowning.
Nowell-Wilson’s work investigates that tipping point — the line where the maternalistic state of being tips from something sensitive to aggressive, from a tearing tension to close connection — and she invites her viewer into that vulnerable walk. While also combining high realism, abstract marks and empty contours, Nowell-Wilson speaks metaphorically to elements of weight, physicality, mental health and veneration.
Nowell-Wilson earned her BFA in Painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2011. She has participated in artist residencies with Stay Home Gallery in Paris, TN, Creative Paradox in Annapolis, MD and the Street Art School in Lyon, France. Her work has exhibited nationally and internationally, most notably New York City and Scotland, and she has also completed urban art pieces in Norway, France, Northern Ireland and Chile. In 2019, she founded MILKED, a new arts publication featuring visual art, photography and the written word by female artists investigating the maternal figure and form.
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Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jeremy-jirsa/support
59 min