by Shelby Hammack
In preparation for a new painting, Elizabeth Wilson sits cross-legged on her bedroom floor, sketching the composition into a small sketchbook. The strokes of her pencil begin broadly but begin to hone into detail as I settle on the floor across from her. Her room is relatively large for being one of four in the home, but it feels slightly smaller due to the collection of trinkets and ephemera she’s collected in this very room for the past two decades. “I prefer to work on the floor of my bedroom if I’m painting,” Wilson states, “I like to be in the comfort of my home with all of my things around me that I need.” Considering the theme of Wilson’s work in the 2025 “Nexus” exhibition at Valdosta State University’s Dedo Maranville Gallery, it is suitable to see her in the comfort of her home while producing her work.
As one of ten artists included in VSU’s Senior exhibition, Wilson’s work filled a predominant space on the North wall; ceramics vessels rest on postcard littered pedestals, four oil paintings on canvas are positioned in a cluster in the center, and the whole collection straddled with two works of paper media.
Two paintings, seemingly a pair, take focus – acts of service and call my bluff. Each work speaks to a completely different narrative, but compliment and balance each other neatly. call my bluff tells the story of sibling rivalry. A majority of the frame contains two wolves fighting, painted in an ultramarine blue scale that is balanced with cadmium red spray paint lettering; the phrase “I HATE YOU SO MUCH” plastered onto the lighter of the two wolves not only resembles the anger and frustration in the intent of those words, but the glistening drips of red paint emulate blood and the metaphorical violence of a fight between siblings.
acts of service, the more delicate rendition of the two, depicts an orange being peeled on a white fabric surface. The gentle application of paint is complemented with the phrase “i love you”, repetitiously applied in clear varnish with a thin round brush. “The two paintings are about how easy it is to say, “I hate you” during an argument, but how hard it can be to say, ‘I love you’ to your family,” Elizabeth states. She continues, “acts of service definitely captures me as an artist the most. I felt that that painting got the response I was looking for… It was incredible to see people’s initial reaction, and then the second reaction they had when they realized there was more to it. It made me feel accomplished as an artist.”
Prior to our meeting, I believed that most, if not all college level artists were narcissists to some extent, whether they included their interests or some version of the self – not Elizabeth. While her “Nexus” collection does include a few renditions of herself, they are not from a point of self-interest. “I don’t know what makes me stand out from other artists who make work about their families,” she claims, “I guess I don’t really care to be the number one ‘artist who makes work about their families.’ But if one person sees something of mine and can relate to it, or feel something because of it,” she paused for a moment, “I feel like I’ve succeeded.”
It was after hearing this statement that I came to realize that Wilson’s work wasn’t about herself at all, but about unconditional love – reciprocated or not. Even though one of her paintings in the exhibition was titled unconditional, this revelation felt like a punch to the face. How could I have been so blind? Perhaps it was in my intention to make a relation with the artwork, that I lost sight of the artist producing it. It was also in this conversation that I took note of the intentionality behind the unconventional method of titling in Wilson’s work. As opposed to traditional uppercase lettering, Wilson’s lowercase titles evoke a sense of softness and comfort that is remnant in the artworks themselves.
The largest of the collection, unconditional, oil on canvas, speaks to the artist’s relationship with her younger sisters. The image applied to the canvas illustrates a scene post-argument between two figures. The figure on the left, with one hand, extends a symbolic gesture of reconciliation, and with the other, holds the second figure’s hand in reassurance. Despite the assurance of the figure on the left, the figure on the right begins to retract in fear and shame. “No matter how much we fight, my sisters are always there for me;” Wilson claims during her artist talk, “even when I try to push them away, they still show me they love me, despite the things we may have said.”
To conclude, Wilson’s work is astonishingly honest to say the least; the passion and intent are clear, from the skillful manipulation of ceramics to the subtle varnish work of acts of service. Beyond the first impression – being methods of formal analysis – I would describe Elizabeth’s artwork as a visual representation of words too vulnerable to say aloud. It has famously been said that a picture is worth a thousand words, but these paintings are worth much more.