HELEN MIRANDA WILSON at Lori Bookstein

Helen Miranda Wilson, Moth, 2010, 11 x 8 inches, oil on panel

In an exhibition that just closed at Lori Bookstein, Helen Miranda Wilson showed a group of vibrant and minuscule panel paintings. Continuing her fascination with bands of color that previously have taken the form of horizontal stripes and concentric circles, Wilson expands her vocabulary of configurations, and shrinks the thickness of the color bands to create optically dynamic pictorial situations in which the colors jump and vibrate as the lines squiggle and wave. Like diagrams of sound waves or energy surges, these beautifully crafted little pieces radiate out into the space, and seem to breathe with color resonance.

Helen Miranda Wilson, Lion, 2012, 11 x 14 inches, oil on panel

HELEN MIRANDA WILSON at DC Moore

Helen Miranda Wilson, Closer To Gray, 2007, oil on panel, 12" x 12"

In Midtown at DC Moore, Helen Miranda Wilson is showing a group of very small panel paintings that employ horizontal stripes in a gorgeous color throwdown. The color arrays are built intuitively from the top down, and the stripes are painted precisely but allowing imperfections. Sometimes color revisions are evident, and the edges are softened by pulling one color into another with a blending brush. While this blending process seems pretty hokey, the effect is to cause a kind of breathing in the silky oil surfaces, releasing the image from hard-edge rigidity. One wall of panels are titled after nationalities (Italian, French, German, etc.) using color combinations that uncannily evoke the titles. Other works seem to key on personal experience for their instigation. These paintings are at once humble in stature and robust in effect -- endlessly changing color resonances in tiny handmade encapsulations.