In Conversation with Paula Wilson: 2024 Ree Kaneko Award Recipient

MADE AT BEMIS

Paula Wilson’s work often draws from art history, personal experience, and the landscapes of the Southwest, where she lives and works in Carrizozo, New Mexico. Known for her dynamic multimedia practice, she blends painting, printmaking, collage, and sculpture to create lush, layered works that challenge historical narratives and celebrate multiplicity in identity, culture, and storytelling. Her practice explores themes of hybridity, representation, and the act of making itself—inviting us into vibrant worlds where past and present, myth and materiality, all coexist. Her 2017 solo exhibition at Bemis Center, The Backward Glance, transported viewers into a mythical creation story.

ABOUT THE AWARD

Granted to artists that have participated in the residency program or had a solo exhibition at Bemis Center, this $25,000 unrestricted annual award is designed to provide financial support to increase the capacity of an alum’s practice. It is made possible by generous support from Bemis’s individual donors.

As part of Bemis Center’s 40th anniversary in 2021, the organization increased and renamed its annual Alumni Award in honor of Ree Kaneko, Bemis Center co-founder, first Executive Director, and Board Member Emerita, whose vision and passion embody the spirit of this unrestricted award and the transformational support it provides. Funds may be used for any purpose and do not need to be tied to a specific project or body of work. This award is by nomination only and is selected by a panel of renowned curators and art historians. Learn more.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Paula Wilson is a multidisciplinary artist based in Carrizozo, New Mexico. Her densely layered, colorful, and often monumental works incorporate painting, collage, film, installation, performance, and printmaking. Born in Chicago, Wilson received her BFA from Washington University in St. Louis in 1998 and her MFA from Columbia University in 2005.

Her work is held in the collections of The Studio Museum in Harlem, Yale University, Princeton University Art Museum, The Albuquerque Museum, and The New York Public Library, among others. Wilson has been featured in publications including Hyperallergic, Artforum, The New York Times, The Brooklyn Rail, and The New Yorker. She is the recipient of the Joan Mitchell Artist Grant, the Bob and Happy Doran Fellowship at Yale University, Princeton University’s Hodder Grant, and the Lunder Institute Ossorio Fellowship.

Wilson’s practice blurs the boundaries between function and artistic expression, embodying a seamless synthesis of creativity and daily life. She lives and collaborates with her husband, woodworker Mike Lagg, together they co-founded MoMAZoZo in 2010 and the Carrizozo Artists-in-Residence program in 2015, which has welcomed over 90 artists to this high-desert town.