Wm. Dilworth (b. 1954, Detroit) is an abstract painter whose discipline spans drawing, making, painting, earth, looking, and a clock. Based in New York City, he has been featured in solo and group shows across the country.
In Intersections II, Dilworth will present work from three distinct series: CountMarks, TouchMarks, and WovenLimbs:
CountMarks began decades ago in book form. They are enlivened tally marks, counting people visiting The New York Earth Room, mapping days, telling stories without words. There are a variety of drawings done alongside and in addition to the books. Some are of weeks, months, and whole seasons. And there are CountMarks Over Centuries.
TouchMarks are marks made probing a surface of varying thickness of oil paint; pushing with fingers after the paint skins up but before it dries. The TouchMarks comprise another body of work that continues over the decades. I had been working on Formica with pulled veils of oil paint. Because they finished very flat, I thought, seeking balance, to make something thicker. So, I pulled the paint thickly. By this time, I had initiated the CountMark body of work, mapping visitors to the Earth Room and so was tuned to essential mark making. So as the thick paint began to dry, I began to probe it, using my fingers to find where the paint was still soft enough to push and make a mark. This became a daily practice, evolving the discovered “composition" until after a week to ten days the paint everywhere was too dry to record my probing interaction with the painting. Over the years I have done this all sizes on all kids of supports, even manifesting architecturally directly on walls, in corners and on ceilings. Original Digital (literally) Artwork, they’re paintings that could be fully experienced touching them with eyes closed.
WovenLimbs are drawings made from combining photographs of tree branches.
For years I have taken pictures looking almost straight up into the bare limbs of the great stand of elaborately pruned elms on Poets Walk, or The Mall, in Central Park. Eventually it occurred to me to combine photographs and draw the limbs past edges into adjoining photos.
I have photographed and made drawings combining multiple photographs of the trees of Seward Park, Washington Square, and Madison Square Park.