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Artist Statement -



Keith Wilson’s Architectural paintings are icons dedicated to an architecture that is no longer conceived or constructed. They represent his continuous study of architectural form. In his work he uses building structures and details in playful juxtaposition, allowing classical elements and vernacular constructions to have their own way, proliferating variations. His color is similarly the product of memory and imagination, inspired by the painted buildings he has seen in Italy and Greece. The result of this graphic exploration is a body of several hundred paintings and drawings, in which knowledge of historic form, fantasies of buildings that might be, and studies for commissioned works are all intermixed.
Recently he has been painting landscapes of inspired by the hills that are adjacent to the UC Berkeley campus. The original paintings are painted with Chinese brushes using sumi ink and watercolor mixed with black water.

The artist is offering signed limited edition prints of the paintings from his private collection. The printing method employed has a very high resolution which reproduces the brilliance and transparent qualities of the original watercolor paintings using permanent, archival ink on 100% rag watercolor paper.

Keith Wilson was born in 1954 in Redding, California and has lived in the Bay Area since 1972. He has traveled extensively in Britain, Europe, Japan, China, Chile and Tunisia with his camera and sketchbook.

Artist Exhibitions



KEITH WILSON
1976 BA ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN, U.C. BERKELEY
1979 MASTER OF ARCHITECTURE, U.C. BERKELEY
MA Thesis "Paul Klee + Memory: An approach to Architectural Ornament"

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITS
2004 Giorgi Gallery, Berkeley, CA
2003 pro Arts Open Studio
2002 website: www.keithwilsonprints.com
2001 Phoenix Lake Gallery, San Rafael, Ca
"Watercolors and Prints- 1980-2000"
1994 Clocktower - San Francisco Watercolors
1992 Agnes Bourne Showroom- San Francisco Watercolors
1990/91 Open Studio Exhibit - 1450 Oak St., San Francisco, Ca.
1987 Builders Booksource - Berkeley, Ca
1984 University of Idaho Gallery - Moscow, Idaho
Watercolors and Architectural Inventions
1983 La Belle Helene Gallery - St. Helena, Ca
Terra Cotta Wall Reliefs and Drawings
1983 Philippe Bonnafont Gallery - San Francisco, Ca.
Watercolor Paintings, Drawings And Terra Cotta Constructions
1982 Equivalents Gallery - Seattle, Washington
Terra Cotta Constructions and Watercolor Paintings
1981 Philippe Bonnafont Gallery - San Francisco, Ca.
Exhibition of Watercolors, Etchings, And Oil Paintings
1980 La Belle Helene Gallery - St. Helena, Ca
Watercolor Paintings and Drawings
Catalog and Poster Published by Yolla Bolla Press
1980 Philippe Bonnafont Gallery - San Francisco, Ca.
Keith Wilson "One Hundred Watercolors"


SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2004 Alvarado Artist Group - Summer Exhibit
2003 ELEMENTS in Paseo Colorado,-Limited Edition Prints
252 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA
2002 Limn Contract_ San Francisco, CA -Limited Edition Prints
2002 ZIA Houseworks -Berkeley, CA- Limited Edition Prints
2001 Limn Gallery- San Francisco, Ca.
"Drawings from Experience" Design Sketches and Watercolors
1992 Japonesque Gallery - San Francisco, Ca
Large Format Ink Drawings
1989 Contemporary Realist Gallery - San Francisco, Ca
"Ornamentation in Architecture"
1987 Leap Benefit - Howard Street, San Francisco, Ca
"The Architect as Artist"
1987 SOM 50 Years Exhibit - Chicago Art Institute
Eight Watercolors of Imaginary Interiors
1985 John Stubbs Rare Books - New York, NY
1985 College of Marin Gallery - Kentfield, Ca
Architecture in Paintings Exhibit
1984 Charles Campbell Gallery - San Francisco, Ca
Gordon Cook, Keith Wilson
1984 American Institute of Architects, National Convention -
San Francisco. -Exhibit of Architectural Drawings
1984 Jewish Community Museum - San Francisco, Ca
Invited Competition to Design A Sukkah With Museum
Exhibition and Catalog
1984 Shasta County Art Association Gallery - Redding, Ca
"Architectural Drawings by Three Artists"
1982 Ballenford Gallery - Toronto, Canada
"Drawings by Architects"
1982 American Institute of Architects Gallery - Seattle, Washington
"Drawings by Architects"
1979 Wurster Hall Gallery - University of California, Berkeley
"Thesis Exhibit of Watercolors and Drawings of European Architecture"
1976 La Mamelle Gallery - San Francisco, Ca
"The Printed Word: Books by Artists"
1975 Worth Ryder Gallery - University of California, Berkeley
"Etchings and Books"

PAINTING COMMISSION

1982-84 "THE ATHENS OF THE WEST"
A seven panel egg tempera and burnished gold leaf on gesso panel painting Inspired by the historic architectural design of the UC Berkeley Campus.
PATRON: Department of Intramural Sports
LOCATION: Lobby, Intramural Sports Facility, Bancroft Ave.
...

Artist Publications



December 27, 2002 PASADENA STAR NEWS
From The Editor's Desk
Pasadena, CA PRINT ARTICLE
Article Last Updated: Friday, December 13, 2002 -
WORLD-CLASS ART ON SHOW IN TOWN

With another take on its great Blue Four collection debuting
for the public today, Pasadena's Norton Simon Museum is once
again showing the incredible depth of its resources.

As Linda Hutchinson described in Friday's U section, the
Blue Four is the name under which the canny Galka Scheyer
marketed in the U.S. the European painters Lyonel Feininger,
Paul Klee, Alexei Jawlensky and Vasily Kandinsky during the
1920s...
And down Colorado from the Simon a friend of mine who also
happens to be a great painter and who wrote his master's
thesis at Berkeley on "Paul Klee + Memory: An Approach to
Architectural Ornament' also has an opening this weekend.

Keith Wilson (no relation) and I were contemporaries at Cal,
where we had friends in common, but didn't know each other
until years later. He is a wonderful designer as well his
wife Jessica Seaton's and his architectural firm did the
Restoration Hardware in Old Pas but foremost he is a
painter. If he sometimes works from the same palette as did
Klee, Keith's work is wholly original: bursting with light,
spirituality, playing with perspectives on a vernacular
architecture that unfortunately doesn't quite exist in the
dowdier 'real' world.

Keith sometimes paints and draws places that are real:
Lucca, the Spanish Steps, a garden house in Kent, a forest
in China: but he improves upon them. In some of his
brightest pieces, he presses gold leaf onto the paintings
and prints. He, like the South American writers, is a
magical realist. A painting he did of my mother and
stepfather's 1910 Pasadena Craftsman house will be in the
show: a diptych, two alternate versions of their
porte-cochere and entryway, it captures the place's soul
from a point of view where no one else has ever stood.

The opening is tomorrow, Sunday, Dec. 15 from 2 p.m. to 6
p.m. at Elements in Paseo Colorado, 252 E. Colorado Blvd.,
Pasadena; the show will be on view for some time.

Larry Wilson,
editor of the Pasadena Star-News...

Artist Collections



COLLECTIONS

GATX Leasing Co. Embarcadero Four - San Francisco
Pacific Bell Headquarters - San Ramon, California
Mahoney Corp. - San Francisco
Jewish Community Museum - San Francisco
Kala Institute - Berkeley
Bramalea Pacific - Oakland, California
Skidmore Owings and Merrill - San Francisco
Paul Anka - Carmel, California
University of California, Berkeley
Standard Oil Company - San Francisco
Raychem Corporation - Tokyo, Japan and Shanghai, China
Kaiser Permanente Hospitals

United States Embassy, Tunis
...

Artist Favorites



Personal Favorites



http://keithwilsonprints.com...