Tim Wilson
October 20th, 2026

The great painter Tim Wilson joins us for this episode of The Selection Committee Radio Show. He brings a mix of songs inspired by the influential label Shimmy Disc Records and its legendary owner/producer, Kramer. Known for championing lo-fi and experimental rock, the label was home to artists who incorporated poetry, humor, and avant-garde sounds into their music.

Inspired in part by the iconoclastic forms of these artists—their uncomfortable, confessional, existential dread—Wilson began to develop a comedy routine. Eventually he started performing at Open Mic events all over New York City, sometimes as often as twice a day. When the pandemic hit and performing publicly was no longer possible, he made a series of absurdist video vignettes—a number of which we get to hear on the show! Dryly funny, these short interventions are also poignant, and lonely.

Tim Wilson makes seductive, richly saturated paintings of unoccupied spaces. He isolates moments from film and television, focusing on the pool of light from a lamp, the sharp break of a shadow running down a set of stairs, or the strange space in a mirror’s reflection. His pictures are objects of meditation on the conditions of perception, fantasy, time, and the semiotics of interiors. We discuss how he came to make this kind of work, how he chooses his imagery, and his particular process of making the paintings.

One liners, smoke and mirrors, sleight of hand, and the fake magic of painting. A blunt matter-of-factness and the spirit of authenticity. A society drawing room and a cafe specializing in coffee… and shrimp cocktail. Tim Wilson wants to make you think—and, possibly, laugh.

1. Good Evening, Tim Wilson   
   
2. Sugarcane, Half Japanese, 1989
   
3. Cooking, Tim Wilson   
   
4. The Drum, Bongwater, 1989
   
5. Dear John, Tim Wilson   
   
6. Weird on the Avenue, The Frogs, 1997
   
7. Books, Tim Wilson   
   
8. Some Things Last a Long Time, Daniel Johnston, Kramer, 1990
   
9. Lunatics, Tim Wilson   
   
10. The Note [Message From Home], Broadcast, 1996
    
11. Music, Tim Wilson   
    
12. Things, John S. Hall, Kramer, 1991
    
13. Shrimp &Coffee, Tim Wilson   
    
14. The Queen, Tim Wilson   
    
15. Rory Rides Me Raw, The Vaselines, 1987
    
16. If Satan Were Real, Tim Wilson   
    
17. It's Been While, Tim Wilson   
    
18. The Future / Dinosaurs are getting better, The Tinklers, 1991
    
19. Sad Peter Pan, Vic Chesnutt, 1995
    
20. Hooked, Lined and Sunken; Shayne Carter, Peter Jefferies; 1986
    
21. You Hit Me over My Head, Dogbowl, 1991
    
22. Eyes Wide Shut, Tim Wilson   
    
23. Theme from M*A*S*H, Royal Trux, 1997
    
24. Hollywood, Tim Wilson   
    
25. Summertime, Galaxie 500, 1990
    
26. Words, Low, 1994
    
27. Open Relationship, Tim Wilson   
    
28. Cirque Du Soleil, Tim Wilson   
    
29. Jesus Was Way Cool, King Missile, 1990
    
30. Tattoos, Tim Wilson   
    
31. Death, Tim Wilson   
    
32. Pale Blue Eyes, Moe Tucker, 1989

Tim Wilson (b. 1970, Newport News, Virginia) lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. He holds an MFA from Yale University School of Art and a BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University.

Tim Wilson’s paintings inhabit desolate interiors, offering evocative yet meditative studies of light, color, and materiality. Suspended in time and place, these compositions are firmly anchored in their painterly reality. With a brush both loose and deliberate, Wilson suggests rather than defines forms, allowing light to pool and fragment across surfaces. Drawing from film, television, the internet, and his own photography, he redirects attention toward the overlooked peripheries of familiar imagery. Lamps emit faint radiance, floral arrangements waver like apparitions, and mirrors fracture rooms into layered reflections. These recurring motifs dissolve into moments of chromatic complexity and soft halation, inviting viewers to linger between clarity and ambiguity.

Working quickly, wet into wet, Wilson captures the immediacy of fleeting impressions, while underpaintings of ochres, pinks, and greens emerge through the surface, evoking the patina of memory. Ornate furnishings, polished surfaces, and intricate moldings suggest a subdued refinement, tempered by muted palettes and understated imperfections. Painted on paper mounted to stretched linen, the irregular surfaces and edges emphasize the works’ dual nature as both image and object. These delicate boundaries reinforce a sense of fragility and impermanence, offering not conclusions but openings for reflection.

Tim Wilson has been awarded residencies at Lighthouse Works, Offshore Residency, Sol LeWitt Studio, Shandaken Project, and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. His work has most recently been featured in solo exhibitions at Nathalie Karg Gallery (New York, NY), Long Story Short (Paris, FR), Fahrenheit Madrid (Madrid, ES), Alfred University (Alfred, NY), and Sardine (Brooklyn, NY), among others. His work has been included in several group exhibitions at Candice Madey (New York, NY), JDJ (New York, NY), The FLAG Art Foundation (New York, NY), Cobb Gallery (London, UK), Taymour Grahne Projects (London, UK), Harper’s Books (East Hampton, NY), Jack Hanley Gallery (New York, NY), and Downtown+ (Paris, France). He has also co-curated several group exhibitions at Kadel Willborn (Düsseldorf, DE) and Kohn Gallery (Los Angeles, CA).