Bio
Kenneth Wilan is based in Berkeley, California. Wilan’s styles include modern, pop, expressionism, figurative and abstract. He works with ink, acrylic, oil, digital and mixed media.
Wilan’s paintings are available as digital prints (numbered and artist signed), canvases, and NFTs.
Wilan has lived in New England, San Francisco, Basel Switzerland and New York City.
His formal education includes Kala Art Institute, Berkeley, California; Hunter College, New York City; University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; and the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey.
Artist Statement
I start a painting as a visceral response to the world, with its layers, complications, passions, joy, cruelty, mystery, sadness, connections, loneliness, sublimity, change and promise. The beginning of a painting is deeply corporeal and answers a need in me; the feel of the brush on the canvas, the mark of movement, the expansion into lines, texture, shapes, color, the communication of a thought or idea from inside to outside. It is an emergent process and experience. Over the course of a painting, the experience and process becomes more conscious and cerebral. The painting is imbued with new and greater meaning.
The paintings I love the most surprise me every time I see them. It offers its beauty, or whimsy, humor, comfort, spectacle, surprise, joy, knowing, peace, excitement, love, completeness. It triggers in me a response, a pleasure and joy and thrill upon coming to it again. The feeling you get when you see someone you love, whether you have not seen them for a year, a day or just a few hours.
