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by Hilary Wilder
A Guesthouse
In the twelve works that comprise A Guesthouse, objects serve as surrogates or witnesses to complex states of mind, such as shame, grief, or unease. The central forms in each painting are invented, without direct reference to individual objects in the real world, though fragments from the artist’s lived experience occasionally surface through screen-printed imagery. The collision of these two visual languages—painting and photo-based print—parallels the gap between the perception of experience and its material record.
Within these works, the objects occupy ambiguous spaces, disrupted or veiled by passages of texture and pattern. These interventions suggest acts of erasure, concealment, or distortion, introducing uncertainty about what the objects “know” or bear witness to. While the paintings' subjects are often melancholic, the juxtapositions and slippages at times evoke awkwardness or humor.
For the past decade, Wilder’s practice has, in different series, explored misunderstood historical narratives and examined how rural locations are romanticized or exploited. A Guesthouse builds on her interest in what is left unspoken and how certain experiences remain unexamined or undisclosed.
In the twelve works that comprise A Guesthouse, objects serve as surrogates or witnesses to complex states of mind, such as shame, grief, or unease. The central forms in each painting are invented, without direct reference to individual objects in the real world, though fragments from the artist’s lived experience occasionally surface through screen-printed imagery. The collision of these two visual languages—painting and photo-based print—parallels the gap between the perception of experience and its material record.
Within these works, the objects occupy ambiguous spaces, disrupted or veiled by passages of texture and pattern. These interventions suggest acts of erasure, concealment, or distortion, introducing uncertainty about what the objects “know” or bear witness to. While the paintings' subjects are often melancholic, the juxtapositions and slippages at times evoke awkwardness or humor.
For the past decade, Wilder’s practice has, in different series, explored misunderstood historical narratives and examined how rural locations are romanticized or exploited. A Guesthouse builds on her interest in what is left unspoken and how certain experiences remain unexamined or undisclosed.
Hilary Wilder is a visual artist who works primarily in painting, as well as in sculpture and installation. She is the recipient of several awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant, and two Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Professional Fellowships. Her work has been presented in solo exhibitions at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, The Suburban (Oak Park, Illinois), the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, and Devin Borden Gallery (Houston), and in numerous group exhibitions in the US and abroad; venues have included the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum. She has participated in international residencies at the Ingmar Bergman Estate (Sweden), Cill Rialaig and Cow House Studios (Ireland), and SÍM (Iceland), and in the US at the Galveston Artist Residency, the Ucross Foundation, and the Jentel Foundation. Wilder lives and works in Richmond, Virginia, where she is an Associate Professor in Painting at Virginia Commonwealth University.
November 15, 2025 - February 14, 2026
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