WILHELM VINCENT

Wilhelm Vincent: Heletroy, 2016

There is a dark unsettling side to the work of Wilhelm Vincent...or is there? The darkness perceived here is really that, a perception, and a self-perception at that. We project our own ideas, or those handed down to us, those dealing with darker forces, of unsettling scenario's, of disturbing half realities, often dismissing them as beyond comfort.

Perception lies at the heart of all our lives. We are illusional and delusional. Our self-perception worlds are where we live, where we spend our lives, that there are 7 billion of them, often fails to register. We often believe that we all share the one perceived world, but of course we don't, we can't, but we try, or are often cajoled or even forced to try.

Artists intrinsically understand this world of the perceived, of the self-perception and of the seemingly shared perception, the grand illusion of our reality. We are often locked into the false reality of others. Who decides this reality, who decides the norm? 

Wilhelm Vincent: Obeisance, 2016

Wilhelm Vincent: Eros, 2016

We have as a culture largely resigned ourselves to this imposed norm from without. To question that imposition is to face a sliding scale from puzzlement to censorship and beyond. One of the most ingrained of impositions is sexuality. 

Our sexuality is with us from birth through to death. Sex is a natural function of of us all. It can be a driving force, a sensual exploration, an anxiety release. It can be serious, it can be comic, it can be intense, and it can be blissful. However, to many it is a repressive, deeply shaming, painful part of being human, something that should be scourged in public and fretted over in private. It is a twisted dysfunctional and deeply self-damaging perception of what it is to be human, 

That is why artists such as Wilhelm Vincent, are so important. Wilhelm questions, he doesn't argue, he questions. How and why do we define the roles ascribed to sex, sexuality, and sexual personality? Can we as individuals, and Wilhelm as an artist in particular, challenge sexual perceptions that we find limiting, or repressive? Do we have choices to our sexuality?

Wilhelm Vincent: Yen, 2016

We need to be open and honest with ourselves as sexual characters. To imagine that Wilhelm produces work that is perverted, to imagine that he produces work that is pornographic, to imagine that he should be restrained from his exploration of sexual self, says much about the character of those individuals than it does about that of the artist, 

We are an ever sliding scale of sexuality, something that Wilhelm intrinsically understands and follows, We can never be identified fully through life as one form or another, we are a multiple of feelings, urges, obsessions, ideals. It is a grand and beautiful vista in which to explore, in what is largely an invisible area of our cultural psyche, but not for long.

Wilhelm is exploring the new frontier of contemporary art, its sexual frontier. Our sexuality is not something separate from us. It is not something we switch on in order to have children, and then switch back off again, It is not something that happens behind closed bedroom doors when the lights are off, it is with us all the time. 

Wilhelm Vincent: Internuncio, 2016

Wilhelm Vincent: Trammel, 2016

Wilhelm uses his work in order to explore the recognition that we are sexual creatures. He goes in with the already understood perception that our sexuality is intrinsically wrapped around and through our character, our life, our journey. To pretend otherwise is to not understand what it is to be human, and that is something Wilhelm will never do.

This imaginative, exploratory artist who has a poets turn of phrase and a poet's eye, is an important moment in contemporary art exploration. Wilhelm is an artist to watch, an artist to explore, an artist to follow, you will certainly not be disappointed.

All of the work shown for this feature is an exclusive collection of work specifically created fro the John Hopper site. The collection is called The Necromancer's Shadow, and as Wilhelm himself explains, it: 

"...is a Dantean thrust into self-submission and a cleansing self-study. A cycle of explorative, burning introspect; that rather than self-immolates, is bold, masculine and energetic in shaking off bonds, perceived, implied or applied - self or otherwise."

Wilhelm Vincent: Lacklustre, 2016

All work is copyrighted to the artist. Please ask permission before sharing imagery. Thank you.