Wilmer Wilson IV
Wilmer Wilson IV (born USA, 1989) currently lives and works in Washington, USA.
He received a BFA from Howard University (Washington, USA) in 2012.
Wilson was selected for the Artist Residency Program, NLS (Kingston, Jamaica) in 2013, 5×5, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities (Washington, D.C., USA) in 2012 and was a Strathmore Artist in Residence (North Bethesda, USA) in 2011.
He has been included in Volta NY (New York, USA) in 2012, CONTEXT Art Miami (Miami, USA) in 2012 and the (e)merge art fair (Washington, D.C., USA) in 2011.
Wilson has had solo exhibitions at CONNERSMITH (Washington, D.C., USA) in 2013, Artisphere (Arlington, USA) in 2013 and, in collaboration with Chukwuma Agubokw, at the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C., USA) in 2012.
He has been included in group exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (New York, USA) in 2012, Greater Reston Arts Center (Reston, USA) in 2011 and White Columns (New York, USA) in 2008.
Wilson is in the collections of the Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery (Birmingham, USA) and 21c Museum Hotel (Louisville, USA).
“What does it mean to be at peace with oneself? Many of my interests stem from this notion of self-agency, and the complex, contradicting interactions it can have with interior and exterior spaces. Aggregations of everyday materials often serve as my vessels to mediate and augment these exchanges.
At times I look to profound examples of self-agency in history. I conceived of a body of work based on Henry "Box" Brown, an American slave who literally was mailed, inside a box, to the free north. In the durational performance Henry "Box" Brown: FOREVER, I created 3 separate skins of postage stamps over my body and walked to Washington, D.C. post offices, asking to be mailed. This film utilises video from a part of that performance, reworked into an open-ended vignette. How must we think of ourselves, and how should we engage the structures around us, to find peace?”