In the video paintings Barbara Wilson collaborates with conceptual artist Rolf Alme. Here the aesthetics of her paintings is merged with video portraits of young men. The contemporary urge to stage your actions and to document and share this staged life using digital media is merged with the texture of the classical painting.
The young men we recognize from the paintings are now real. Or are they? They are obviously staged. Their poses establish a similar attitude. There is the same unbridgeable abyss between the spectator and the video portraits that we experienced in the paintings. The young men are here in front of us breathing and blinking their eyes but we cannot reach out to them and their world.
Because they are so real the spectator feels almost uncomfortable in front of them. It is like we are intruding, looking through the half closed door of our son’s room while he is sitting on his bed thinking about something we shouldn’t know, thinking about something we wouldn’t understand.