In his first solo exhibition with OCHI Projects, Brian Wills presents twelve new wall works intentionally placed throughout both galleries. Building upon the artist’s unique visual vocabulary of thread, paint, and wood, Wills’ new work evokes experiential understandings of line, color, space, and object as he aligns his practice with minimalist abstraction, the subversive history of the monochrome, California Light & Space, and other art historical paradigmatic shifts. Singular strands of thread are delicately wrapped around wooden substrates, eventually creating surfaces that appear to vibrate and shift depending on available light, thread density, the architecture of the panel, and the motion of the viewer.
Wills is acutely aware of how a viewers’ brain will react to his work. The visual cortex interprets received visual data—color, motion, texture, and depth—precisely the fundamental properties that Wills engages. When exposed to pattern, the brain extrapolates as it habituates, for example when assuming that a vertical line of brown thread will repeat as it did thousands of times in a row—the works in OCHI Aux exemplify these principles. Deliberately skipped threads or a shift from warm to cool red thread are intended to reveal moments of intuition and intention, while indicating methods of construction. Expectations are constantly at play. Engaging with one’s own perception is always a gift, offering moments of joy, wonder, and self-reflection—in other words, investments in observation are rewarded handsomely.
Brian Wills is on view through March 12 @ OCHI 3301 W Washington Blvd Los Angeles.
