Alexander Richard Wilson, Black Cowboy on a White Horse, Snake in the Grass, flashe and acrylic on canvas, 20 x 16 in. (50.8 x 40.6 cm)
Alexander Richard Wilson is a landscape and figure painter whose work is driven by contradictions found in observances of the contemporary habitation of the lands of the American West. The artist’s practice draws on the history of the spaces that make up the Front Range, and the evaluation of the depth of loss or presence within these American landscapes, exploring the relativity these losses have to the black body in the Western context. The work draws on the sensations and relationships between figurative shapes, weather events, and climate change. In their painting, Alexander works to reference their history as the product of a large, African American family, and their present context as a queer black body in the midst of shifting climates and conditions in the United States.