Nic Wilson
Regina, Saskatchewan
ARTIST BIO
Nic Wilson (they/he) is an artist and writer born in the Wolastoqiyik territory known as Fredericton, NB in 1988. He graduated with a BFA from Mount Allison University, Mi’kmaq territory, in 2012, and an MFA from the University of Regina, Treaty Four Territory, in 2019 where he was a SSHRC graduate fellow. They have shown work across Canada and participated in projects with Remai Modern, Plug In ICA, Art Souterrain, and Modern Fuel. They have shown work internationally with Venice International Performance Art Week, Casa de la Primera Imprenta de América in Mexico City, and NADA in Bogota.
Working across media, Wilson creates videos, performances and artist books, and writes essays and art criticism. Their work often engages time, queer lineage, decay, and the distance between art practice and literature. In 2021 they were long-listed for the Sobey Art Award as a representative of the Prairies and the North. They were the 2022 writer-in-residence for G44 Centre for Contemporary Photography. Their writing has appeared in BlackFlash Magazine, Peripheral Review, NORK, C Magazine, and Border Crossings.
PROJECT STATEMENT
My practice is primarily invested in the intertwining of language, images, and objects to understand the way that coding and decoding are fundamental processes in the formation of social bonds. I am compelled to make images, objects, and texts that work in conversation to highlight the ways that contemporary life demands fluency across a wide spectrum of literacies that all work together to create meaning and manipulate one’s sense of reality.
This body of work contemplates the place of Christian theology in a rapidly secularizing culture. In particular, I want to think about the place of queer worldviews and counter the one-dimensional beliefs about Christianity that have driven so-called Christian Fundamentalists to target queer minorities and seek to disenfranchise and eradicate us from social life.
My interest in theology and Christian imagery sprang from a project on the connection between contemporary product photography and still-life images. I wanted to examine the continuity between these forms of image-making to understand how meaning, values, and history are transmitted through the repetition of visual conventions which radiate meaning in ways that might be imperceptible to some.
My research into the modes of coding and legibility in many historical still-life images brought up connections to the history of queer coding and the politics of legibility in the queer community. Many of the photos I make contemplate the difference between looking queer (signalling an interior truth about one’s queerness to the outside world) and queer looking (a way of looking at the world that is inflected by one’s experience of queerness).
Many of these images are part of a larger constellation of works including performances, public installations and a forthcoming artist’s book.
